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 have already planted about 250,000 trees for wild and domesticated elephants. To be able to extend the Elephant Nature Park, we’ll organize Bike for Elephants on January 14 and 15 2012. Read more... >>>
Photo report of tree planting event for wild elephants
antoinette - 11 July 2011 08:06
Last Tuesday, July 5th, ECN and BTEH organized another tree planting event for wild elephants in Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary. With 320 volunteers, the job was done in 2.5 hours and the forest got about 5,000 extra trees. This time we selected a different location inside the sanctuary. At the previous planting site we covered most of the open areas already, and at the new location there is a serious human-elephant conflict. The newly planted forest will hopefully act as a buffer zone, so eventually the elephants will no longer go to plantations to find food. The many local children who came to help us, were very impressed with the project. Some children told us that wild elephants come to their school sometimes, because of the mango trees in that area. Now that they have learned more about the situation of wild elephants, they want to do more to protect them. And that is exactly the objective of this project!
A big thanks to the participating schools: Sisawat kindergarden, Baan Chong Krating, Baan Chao Nin, Moo Baan Dek, Ko Keew, Sisawat Pittaya Kom, and the local police from Sisawat and Lat Ya station, officers from Sri Nakarin and Thathung Na, the forest rangers of Salakpra.
Click more for a photo report of the tree planting event.
Coming soon: first elephant walk to the jungle
antoinette - 30 June 2011 08:47
In the middle of the rainy season, we are planting trees in the Elephant Jungle almost every week, with the help of many volunteers from the Elephant Nature Park. Our tree nursery is blooming. The different seeds we collected around the land over the last few months have germinated and help us to restore the forest quickly.
Since December 2010 we have been working at the Elephant Jungle, and we achieved many projects already. Such as the construction of the education center / seed house, built entirely by volunteers and by using natural materials as much as possible. A lot of work, but it’s almost finished now and looks beautiful. Next week we will finish the plastering and start decorating the building. We made a water reservoir and installed a water system, so we have water all year round now, we are less vulnerable to leakage or drought and we can plant trees throughout the year. Especially now in the rainy season many things are growing and flourishing on the land. Some trees we have planted two years ago, are now about 3 meters high already. The land looks much greener and more diverse compared to last year. The road to the land, remains a weak part. The most dangerous places on the way have been improved, but after a heavy monsoon downpour, we can hardly reach the project site. But perhaps an Elephant Jungle should be poorly accessible.
We are now almost ready to walk the first elephants to explore the jungle! This week we did a last survey of the trail from the Elephant Nature Park to the Elephant Jungle. This month we hope to bring the young bull Hope and his girlfriend Sai Yai to the jungle for a three days holiday, so we can slowly start to get used to having elephants on the land. More details soon! Click “more’ for the pictures of recent activities. (more…)
Join our next tree planting event for wild elephants
antoinette - 19 June 2011 10:07
Kanchanaburi, July 5, 2011
Please join our next tree planting event inside Salakpra wildlife sanctuary! Our ambition is to plant about 12,000 - 15,000 native tree seedlings, so we need many volunteers to help us. This project helps to improve the habitat of wild elephants and to solve human elephant conflicts around the sanctuary.
Date: Tuesday 5 July 2011, 9:30 - 3:45 P.M
Program: Saturday 5/7/2011
9.00 A.M: Arrival of all volunteers. Welcome by chief of rangers, ECN / BTEH and tree planting instructions. (Note: all volunteers are requested to get to Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary by themselves).
9.30 A.M: Volunteers get to the planting plots inside the jungle by trucks or walking.
10.00 A.M: Start tree planting for 12,000 - 15,000 trees, with water / fruit break.
12.00 A.M: Packed lunch in the jungle
1.00 P.M: Continue tree planting until all plots finished.
3.30 P.M: Finish trees planting. Collect all garbage / plastic bags.
3.45 P.M: Drive out of Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary. (more…)
Bike for Elephants 2012: January 14 and 15!
antoinette - 13 June 2011 08:03
Join our charity bike ride for the survival of Thai elephants!
The weekend of the 14th and 15th of January 2012 we invite you to join our ‘Bike for Elephants’ tour in Northern Thailand. Two days of adventure and fun biking through the Mae Tang valley, in Chiang Mai province.
This event will raise much needed funds for the Elephant Jungle Project and create awareness about the plight of Thai elephants. The Elephant Jungle Project, a joint project of Bring the Elephant Home and the Elephant Nature Park, is a future home for rescued elephants where they can live their lives in freedom and nature. (more…)
Tree maintenace and fire break cutting at Salakpra
Dutsadee - 23 May 2011 09:35
An update of the activities of our project Trees for Wild Elephants, from June 2010 until May 2011. We are ready for the next tree planting event!
In June 2010, 13,125 trees were planted at 3 planting sites inside Salakpra wildlife Sanctuary, as a partnership between Bring the Elephant Home, Elephant Conservation Network and Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary. This was the 3rd year of the joint tree planting project inside Salakpra forest. Each year, after planting trees, we focus on taking care of the planted trees. This way we will make sure that the trees can compete with the fast-growing weed, will have a high survival rate and can grow very well. The planted trees need maintenance every 4 - 6 weeks after the planting day, until the end of the 1st and 2nd rainy season or until the forest recovers (within the next 2 – 3 years). From our survey at the end of last years rainy season (October 2010) we found that up to 70 - 75% of the planted trees survived and were healthy. After the rainy season we didn’t need to do weeding anymore, because with the hot weather it’s better to leave some grasses to cover the soil to keep moisture for our young trees.
For this coming rainy season 2011, BTEH will again plant trees inside Salakpra wildlife sanctuary, for the 4th time, thanks to the support of the World Wildlife Fund Netherlands (WWF). The aim of the project is to improve the habitat of the wild elephants and to solve human-elephant conflicts between wild elephants and local people living around the sanctuary. We will announce the confirmed date and time of the tree planting event at Kanchanaburi on our website soon. We are looking for groups of volunteers, so if you have any network with an interest in conservation, please contact us for more information: info@bring-the-elephant-home.org or call (083) 566 5223.
Please join us to save the world for Thai elephants, make new friends, learn about wildlife conservation and have a great weekend. Hopefully we will have the support from many volunteers, like in the previous years.
Click more for the details and a photo overview of the activities on the project site!
Tree planting events all rainy season
antoinette - 25 April 2011 10:25
The rainy season is coming near and that means lots of tree planting for Bring the Elephant Home. To realize our objectives, we need your helping hands and support!
In Chiang Mai we are creating an elephant jungle together with the Elephant Nature Park, at a beautiful location that used to be covered by cabbage plantations. Slowly we see nature recovering but the area desperately needs more trees and more biodiversity. In our tree nursery we have about 8,000 seedlings of different species ready to be planted soon. So please spend some time with us to restore the forest and enjoy nature together!
At the Elephant Jungle we are restoring the forest, are creating a food forest and we need to plant natural fencing.
We are looking for groups to volunteer with us, just for a day or more. If you have any network with an interest in conservation, please contact us.
For any group of minimum 10 people we organize an inspiring and educational tree planting event, include transportation, food, instructions and if necessary accommodation (shared). So get your group of friends, your company, sport club, school class etc together and plan your trip to the future elephant jungle!
For schools / universities: we can add other educational activities too.
Depending on the program we kindly ask for a donation to cover the costs of the event.
If you cannot get a group together, we will organize some individual tree planting events too. More info about this soon!
Please email to info@bring-the-elephant-home.org to plan your event with us. Hope to see you soon!
Elephant Jungle promo
antoinette - 08:31
Permaculture weekend outing at the Elephant Jungle
antoinette - 4 April 2011 06:57
Please come and join us for a permaculture weekend outing at the Elephant Jungle.
We want to build mandala gardens, which will be an entertaining and educational activity at the Elephant Jungle, where you can become creative and also meet like-minded people.
A mandala garden is a concept used in permaculture to grow your own food. Mandala garden look fabulous and are a great way to let our garden beds burst out into a riot of living colour, allowing easy accessibility and visual interest. The garden beds are symmetrical and circular arranged and include keyholes for easy access to the plants. Trees, shrubs and veggies will be planted together so that they would support and enhance each other. Such plant systems can improve the natural balance of the veggie garden tremendously. Despite occasionally mulching and composting mandala garden have little maintenance according to permaculture ideas, where the soil is left undisturbed through digging and turning.
Inspired? Then please join us… We will build the planter beds, arrange the footpaths and keyholes, install the water system, mulch, plant trees, shrubs, veggies and sow seeds at the mandala garden. Optional we build a bamboo pergola for climbing veggies as well.
Date : 9 – 10 April 2011 (leaving around 8am on Saturday & would be back around 6pm on Sunday) (more…)
Elephant Jungle mini docu
antoinette - 28 March 2011 09:46
Produced by: Sike Sillanpää
Update elephant jungle
antoinette - 24 February 2011 13:06
The last couple of months we have been working hard at the Elephant Jungle. Now that the basic infrastructure is installed, such as accommodation, running water, the kitchen and solar electricity, we can stay there every week with a group of volunteers. And with their help a lot has been accomplished! Such as the making of about 500 adobe bricks, the foundation of the first building and the germination of thousands of seeds. The next weeks we are building a seed house / education center to be able to do more research and create more biodiversity. We will make this building with earth bags, in the shape of a dome. Next month we will cut a fire break to protect our land from forest fire in the dry season. And we are extending the tree nursery, so that we are prepared for the next tree planting season. Lot’s of projects going on, and many ideas for the future. Click more for a photo overview of the activities on the project site!
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