Bring The Elephant Home & Trees for Elephants (EN)

A city is the last place where you would expect to find an elephant. Their existence is heartbreaking. Without the forest, and sufficient food, Thai elephants won’t have a chance of survival. 'Bring the Elephant Home' is dedicated to create a better future for all Thai elephants. We hope to achieve this by stimulating animal friendly eco-tourism, creating habitat for elephants, growing food for elephants, creating alternatives for elephant families and by finding solutions to solve human-elephant conflicts. With our project Trees for Elephants we plant ten thousands of trees for wild and domesticated elephants every year. To be able to extend the Elephant Nature Park, we’ll organize Bike for Elephants on February 6 and 7. Read more... >>>

Chang Yim growing up happily

^{antoinette - 10 December 2009 07:32}

Chang Yim entertains the ENP visitors every day. In the afternoon many people are following Chang Yim’s adventures from the viewing bridge in the park. Together with Faa Mai he is running around the park, looking for new games and tricks to enjoy. Like chasing the new elephant Rara, or playing in the sand bath with all the youngsters. Chang Yim has his own mahout now, Mong, and they became close friends. Mong has a lot of experience with baby elephants, so he knows exactly how to deal with the naughty Chang Yim. They play with each other, and while playing Mong taught Chang Yim many commands already. Chang Yim is learning even faster than Faa Mai. But he’s still a bit wild, and very naughty. Often he is just running around and chasing everybody near him. Except Mong. He’s growing so fast that soon he will be too strong to control easily. He tries his strenght with many other elephants, like the two year old Thong Tae. But if he get scared of something, he runs to his mother Dok Ngeon for protection. Chang Yim loves his aunt Malai Thong, who always keeps an eye on him. At night Chang Yim sleeps often besides Malai Thong, because she is much more calm than his own mother. The huge snoring Malai Thong, with Chang Yim safely curling up against her… so beautiful.

From left to right on this video: Dok Ngeon, Chang Yim, Faa Ma, Malai Thong and Thong Jan.

Click more for two more videos of Chang Yim: (more…)

New arrival at ENP: Rara

^{antoinette - 5 December 2009 06:11}

Last October the elephant Rara arrived at the Elephant Nature Park.
When she was only one , she was taken kicking and screaming away from her mother to be trained. After her training she was taken to a luxury hotel in the seaside resort of Krabi.
Since then, she has been used to welcome and entertain guests. Her routine remained the same for six years. She would be taken to either the hotel lobby, or some other area when she grew, for an hour in the morning to meet and greet guests. They could feed her bananas and fruit and could take pictures with her. Then in the afternoon she would be taken to the beach for an hour so she could swim and play in the ocean, which she loved, and again guests could take pictures, feed her and sometimes swim with her. Aside from these regular outings, and some additional play time while she was walking to and from them, she would remain chained in her house on very short chain. Her knowledge of the world was contained within the area between her house and the main hotel area. (more…)

“Happy faces” for jumbos

^{antoinette - 3 December 2009 10:31}

Move elephants from Bangkok’s mean streets to natural habitats
Published in MCOT English News, last update: 30 November 2009.

Scenes of hungry, unemployed elephants wandering the crowded streets of Bangkok begging for food and money from tourists and urbanites may soon be a memory after the Thai capital’s municipal government—the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, (the BMA or City Hall)—recently kicked off strict new measures to ban the elephants from the streets and enlist help from the Provincial Administrative Organisation in the northeastern province of Surin, home to large numbers of both pachyderms and their handlers, the mahouts, in an attempt to find a lasting and sustainable solution to the problem. (more…)

Fundraising ideas for Bike for Elephants

^{antoinette - 26 November 2009 07:26}

Some ideas to get started to raise money for your bike team. The fundraising events are not just to find sponsors, but you will generate awareness too. Enjoy organizing your event!

Create your team page on our website

Introduces your team, announce your fundraising events, track your fundraising efforts, thank donors and get online donations. Send links to your page to all your contacts. We can design a banner for your team to promote your bike team on other websites.

The sponsor book

Carry your sponsorship book with you at all times - you never know when and where you’ll find people wanting to sponsor your team.

Encourage your employer to match your fundraising.

For every baht you raise, your employer sponsors a baht too. And ask your colleagues to start sponsoring.

Sell merchandising

Get some Bike for Elephants merchandising (with BTEH logo) produced: T shirts, pencils, caps, key chains, bags, stickers. Ask restaurants, shops, friends, your social club to buy / sell the merchandising. (more…)

Video to promote the elephant island homestay project

^{antoinette - 15 November 2009 17:16}

Channel 11 made a 20 minutes documentary for the program ‘the local way of life’ about our project in Buriram. This is the trailer of the documentary to promote the project (edited by Bring the Elephant Home).

Statement Antoinette about media problems

^{antoinette - 6 November 2009 16:24}

Statement Antoinette van de Water – founder of Bring the Elephant Home

This week a picture that has been taken 4 years ago and has been published in our book ‘The Great Elephant Escape’ about mating of elephants became hot news in Thai media. Monday the 2nd of November the Thai Rath newspaper published this picture on the front page with the text that a Dutch writer is insulting Thailand in the whole word. The text in the article weren’t my words. I didn’t do an interview with Thai Rath and I didn’t write this text in my book. After my protests, Thai Rath did in fact rectify the story. But other media had already picked it up and sent it snowballing into public space. Other organizations stated that the picture is fake, published only to discredit Thailand and to promote the book.

I had a chance to clarify my story on Channel 7, the Nation TV, TAN media network, Thai Rath and today in the Nation Weekend magazine. With this statement about my background and the reasons for my being in Thailand, I want to make the information accessible to everybody.
(more…)

Update Chang Yim

^{antoinette - 12 October 2009 08:42}

Chang Yim’s (3 months old) life in the Elephant Nature Park is an adventure every day. Together with his friend Faa Mai (6 months old) he is running through the fields every day, followed by a whole herd of worried elephants. They play in the mud together, rolling in and throwing with the sand, try to climb on top of each other. It’s so beautiful to see them grow up like this, free and without any troubles. And the best thing: they can stay there for the rest of their lives. The families of Faa Mai and Chang Yim are joining each others company most of the time now. With the young elephants Faa Sai and Thong Jan, this is the youngest, most active and entertaining family. All activities of this group are observed daily by all volunteers and visitors. The best ‘elephant show’ you can imaging. And no training or whatsoever is involved! Click more to continue reading and watch more pictures of Chang Yim and Faa Mai. (more…)

Visit the Thailand festival in the Netherlands

^{antoinette - 10 October 2009 09:39}

The Thailand festival is an inspiring event for everybody interested in Thailand. With a divers entertainment program, an exotic market with Thai products, delicious Thai food and drinks and a lot of information, for example about traveling in Thailand.
Schedule: Saturday October 24, 2009 from 10.00 AM until 01.00 AM and Sunday October 25, 2009 from 10.00 AM until 8.00 PM. Where: Rijswijk Expo (Darling Market), Volmerlaan 12, 2288 GE Rijswijk ZH. For more information about the festival, click here. Book your tickets here.

Meet Bring the Elephant Home at the festival

Bring the Elephant Home will be present at the festival to inform visitors about the situation of Thai elephants and our projects. We hope to meet you there too! Visit our booth, get more information, buy our merchandising and meet some of our volunteers. A great opportunity to get to know each other. We hope you will join our campaign: Money back…. to Thailand. The amount of money we raise with this campaign will be spend on one of our projects to help the Thai elephants and you will have a chance to win a Bring the Elephant Home gift. (more…)