Animal Welfare Myanmar Project #28337

Save Elephants: Grow the Communities They Live In

by The Elephant Project

Project Report | Jun 19, 2019
MYANMAR - THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

By M. Dane Waters | President

I hope you are well and want to thank you again for your valuable support!

Since the last update we have been diligently working on several fronts, but our primary focus continues to be helping Myanmar’s elephants through various projects in the country.

BUILDING ELECTRIC FENCES

We are providing materials necessary to install electric fences in rural villages that are in desperate need of this fencing. Each village we are working in has roughly 15-20 families. These families grow paddy, beans, lemongrass, sesame, sugarcane and cassava plants and without these fences they could lose all their crops, food for themselves and their livelihoods. Due to severe deforestation in the country caused by a century of uncontrolled logging, access to natural food sources for the elephants are pushing them to raid these local crops. This is why these elephants are in such danger because the villagers turn to killing them to protect their crops and their families - which is why these fences are so critical. Please take a look at our new video regarding this growing issue in Myanmar.

DOCUMENTARY

We are planning our next trip to Myanmar – most likely in October – to continue filming our documentary regarding the numerous issues facing the country and the impact they are having on the country's elephant population. This will be our third trip to the country and our hopes are to finalize filming this year and have the film ready for the film festival circuit early in 2020. This is a critical component of our educational efforts. In case you missed our short film with footage from our first trip I hope you will take a look.

RELOCATING ELEPHANTS

As you know from our last update we signed an agreement with the Myanmar government to help with the relocation of elephants that are subject to human-elephant conflict and in areas of increased poaching. We are continuing our preparations to execute this project, but relocating elephants is a complicated process. In addition to its complexity, it is also controversial among some animal welfare organizations and so we must move forward in a very methodical manner to ensure that we address the concerns that relevant stakeholders have in the relocation effort. The primary concerns when relocating elephants fall into the following areas:

Is moving the elephant(s) truly necessary to protect them and/or the inhabitants. As part of this, will the new location be more safe and secure than their current location. In short, what is the overall intent of the move.
Can the concern for their safety and those of the local inhabitants be addressed through other means like new fencing, enforcement activities, or through other methods.
Will the move be done in a way that ensures that the herd and family units be maintained and not separated? This is critical to ensuring the proper integration of the elephant(s) into their new home.
Can the safety and security of the elephants and those working to relocate them be ensured during the move.

We have spent the last few months discussing this project with experts around the world to fully understand their concerns and to find the right people to help ensure these concerns are alleviated. This is important to address one of the key parts of our agreement which is to establish and agree to the best practices to ensure the health and safety of the elephants during relocation. These discussions are continuing, and we hope to designate a small team of experts to work on this project soon. Once this team is finalized, they will travel to Myanmar to address two important parts of our agreement with the government:

Identify elephants that need relocation
Identify mutually agreeable areas to relocate the elephant

We understand the need to move quickly to execute this agreement and begin the relocation efforts, but we feel strongly that we must be systematic in our planning and will take the right amount of time to make certain this effort is in the best interest of the elephants and those working to ensure their safety and protection.

COMMUNITY AND SANCTUARY

We continue to do the work necessary to get the support and approvals to build our community and sanctuary in Myanmar. Given the complexities of working with the Myanmar government and the importance to ensure that this project is in the best interest of the elephants, the environment, and the local communities, this process is slow but we remain optimistic about its ultimate success. If you haven’t taken a closer look at our plan I hope you will visit our website to learn more.

As you can see, we continue to push forward with our projects in Myanmar and your support as been invaluable! Thank you again and please don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions, comments or concerns about our efforts.

All the best,

Dane

PS:I hope you will take time to visit The Elephant Times to check out our latest blogs and podcasts.

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Mar 4, 2019
Fighting Back

By Dane Waters | President and Founder

I hope all is well. I just wanted to give you a quick update on our activities. A lot of exciting things happening!

As you know, we have been very active in pushing back against President Trump and his decision to overturn the ban on the import of elephant trophies into the US. We are also working to stop the Department of Interior’s efforts to promote the slaughter of elephants around the world using taxpayer dollars. These actions by the Trump Administration represents one of the greatest threats to elephants in decades. Until the Trump Administration, the US played a pivotal role in global elephant protection efforts by using our strength to push other countries – like China – to crack down on the ivory trade.

But since the Trump Administration has abandoned our nation’s critical role in protecting elephants, other countries are aggressively supporting the killing of elephants. Botswana is a perfect example. It was once a leader in elephant protection but has now reopened trophy hunting so wealthy game hunters from the US can kill an elephant and take their trophies home. With the US being absent from helping protect elephants, more countries like Botswana will begin allowing for trophy hunters to kill the few remaining elephants in the world.

One course of action we are pursuing is through our Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests with the Department of Interior to get information on who is the driving force behind the Administration’s efforts. We believe that one thing we will find is that Don Jr had a role in this since he as an avid elephant killer.

We have also enlisted John Kasich and Hillary Clinton to support our efforts and to push Congress to act to stop the Administration’s efforts. They jointly signed an op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post that gives The Elephant Project a great shout-out. We drafted the op-ed for them and are partnering with them on this important project as well as other efforts we will be undertaking in other parts of the world.

In addition to our legal and Congressional efforts we started the Horton Series of Educational Cartoons that we are using to spread awareness via our online and social/digital platforms.

Another area of great focus is to help end human-elephant conflicts – which is the second biggest contributor to elephant deaths around the world after poaching. We just signed an agreement with the Government of Myanmar to help relocate elephants to areas where they are safe and not subject to death from human-elephant conflicts.

We are also helping fund the building of electric fences in Myanmar that will help keep elephants out of the crops of local villagers. If nothing is done, these villagers will simply kill the elephants either by themselves or by calling in poachers to do it for them. Here is a short video that will give you more information on our efforts. Additionally, we continue to work with the Myanmar government on creating a safe, secure place where elephants live in peace by fostering an environment through innovative corporate, government, and non-profit partnerships, where protecting elephants and ensuring their protection produces prosperity for the people. This solution is based on free and fair market principles that will prove that ensuring the safety and security of an elephant is more valuable to governments, communities, and the people than a dead one. You can learn more about these efforts by watching this short video.

We are also working on a documentary about the plight of elephants in Myanmar and how climate change and extreme deforestation is contributing to the rapid loss of elephants in the country. Our documentary team just finished a month of filming in Myanmar and will be going back in June for additional filming. Our goal is to participate in film festivals around the world – like Sundance and Cannes – to create awareness of the cruelty that Asian elephants are facing. We are also working on getting the documentary on Netflix so it has the best possible reach to the people.

Our innovative solutions will help stop the senseless killing of elephants and the cruelty they face around the world. With your financial help we have made tremendous strides and I hope you will consider additional support for our efforts so that we can help end the senseless slaughter of elephants.

Thanks again for your help and please let me know if you have any additional questions.

All the best,
Dane

PS: I hope you will visit The Elephant Store. 100% of every sale goes directly into projects. Another example of how we are using free and market values to help fund elephant protection.

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Nov 12, 2018
Trump and Myanmar

By Dane Waters | President

I hope all is well.

As I briefly discussed in my last update, we have developed a three-prong strategy that is designed to provide immediate protections to elephants while developing long term sustainable solutions to end this epic struggle. They are:

1 | END THE MARKET FOR IVORY AND OTHER ELEPHANT PARTS AND THE INHUMANE TREATMENT OF ELEPHANTS - We will confront any government anywhere in the world whose policies and actions or in-actions contribute to the senseless slaughter and inhumane treatment of elephants.

2 | RELOCATE ELEPHANTS WHO ARE IN DANGER TO SAFETY - We will relocate elephants from areas where they are in danger due to human-elephant conflicts, environmental challenges, inhumane treatment, or poachers.

3 | DEVELOP HUMANE ECONOMIES THAT WILL PROVIDE PERPETUAL FUNDING FOR THE CARE AND PROTECTION OF WILD AND CAPTIVE ELEPHANTS - We will create a safe, secure place where elephants live in peace by fostering an environment through innovative corporate, government, and non-profit partnerships, where protecting elephants and ensuring their protection produces prosperity for the people. This solution based on free and fair market principles will prove that ensuring the safety and security of an elephant is more valuable to governments, communities, and the people than a dead one.

We are making great progress in each area. In the first prong, we have been very active in pushing back on President Trump and his administration’s efforts to support the senseless killing of elephants. We have undertaken a campaign to push Trump to restore the import ban that includes requesting documents that we believe will show questionable activities by Secretary of Interior Zinke in pushing for the ban and the creation of the International Wildlife Conservation Council (IWCC) which is simply designed to push countries to allow for the slaughter of elephants so they can be imported back into the United States. We have also undertaken an earned media campaign designed to raise awareness of these actions. As part of this we have started our Horton Series of Editorial Cartoons which highlight Trump’s actions which we distribute via all our social and digital media platforms. If you don’t currently follow us on Twitter and Facebook I hope you will, so you can receive these cartoons and our other interesting and educational posts.

As to our third prong, we are continuing our work in Myanmar to build our sustainable long-term funding solution for the protection of elephants. As part of that effort, we are developing a short film to highlight the challenges elephants are facing in Myanmar. Here is a preview.. We will be heading to Myanmar early next year for a month of filming.

Because of you we are making tremendous progress. Thank you for your belief in us and our mission.

All the best,

Dane

Links:

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