"Far Beyond Pearls Is Her Value"

Sangduan ("Lek") Chailert is an accomplished woman. She is pioneering the movement to end the abuse of elephants, educating people about their plummeting numbers, and finding harmonious ways we can share this earth together with the elephants. I met Lek while visiting the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. This November Lek was honored in Time Magazine(Asian version) as a "Hero of Asia 2005" for her activism for elephants. Lek has created an elephant haven in Thailand, the Elephant Nature Park, the only one of its kind in that country. It is a touch of heaven for elephants, most who have survived a great portion of their lives in extreme hardships, abused and tortured. There is an elephant who has had all her legs broken. There is a blind elephant who has had both of her eyes shot to pieces with a bb gun, horrific abuses. What the elephants now experience is an abundance of love, and miraculously great healing begins to happen. Elephants that were not predicted to survive begin to feel hope. There is hope. The elephants at the park have formed four families and they seem happy and joyed to be there. Each family has a baby or child it has adopted and raises. To great celebration, one baby elephant was recently born at the Elephant Nature Park. That baby will never have to experience the abuse by humans that its parents lived.

The elephants at Lek's Elephant Nature Park have the side of a mountain to jungle around on and be elephants, and a river to bathe and play in. Each elephant has a mahout, an elephant care-giver who watches over them with love, to help the elephant avoid dangerous situations like stumbling into a neighboring banana or other crop field where the elephant could be shot. The mahouts at Lek's place are learning a new way to be with the elephants. Almost every "domesticated", not free in the wild, elephant that is seen in Thailand has been sent through a process called "breaking the spirit" of the elephant. The details of that horrible process is documented in a special Lek did with Discovery Channel. Basically, the elephants are taken from their mothers at a very young age and beaten for weeks on end until they are submissive. Lek's message is that elephants do not need to be beaten but instead loved to win respect. This is a revolutionary premise on a planet where brute force has been a dominating factor. In a place, where elephants will kill their abusive mahouts and by-standers, or commit suicide by inhaling their last breath and then stepping on their trunks, or lie down and refuse to get up even if severely beaten, what is desperately needed are other alternatives and working solutions so that the interaction can be beneficial for elephants and humans.

The elephant trekking business is big money in Thailand. At Lek's I learned the back spine of an elephant is not meant to carry people, only near their necks is strong enough to support comfortably a person. Yet every elephant trek I saw in Thailand features people, usually 2 or 3 riding on an elephants back. It is very popular to go on these treks, but people don't realize the inhumane treatment almost every elephant has suffered, endured, and/or lives in daily. Lek's park proves you can run a successful place with elephants and not have to put the mahouts, the tourists, and elephants at risk or grave danger. The tide is changing within Thailand because of the attention Lek's not-for-profit Elephant Nature Park has received through media and word of mouth. Lek has teamed with an organization that is training elephant mahouts to earn the respect of an elephant by love. She has paired with Monks to preserve the jungle areas so that elephants can have a place to roam and call their home. Lek is continuously educating guests at the park and elephant owners, rescuing elephants, or arranging medical attention for elephants in need in remote locations in Thailand. Her good will is spreading to the care of African elephants too. It is the hope that elephant business owners will realize that it is financially possible to have elephant friendly tourism without the cruelty practices.

Lek's journey has been in uphill climb. Her life has been threatened for exposing the ill treatment of elephants. One of her baby elephants that she rescued, nursed, and nurtured as her own, and was also featured in the Discovery Channel documentary, was given cyanide by someone posing as a guest to the Elephant Nature Park. Killing her might cause too much international attention but killing her baby elephant was an emotional knife wound to her heart. Lek has not been stopped and the good words about the Elephant Nature Park are spreading like wild fire in tourist towns like Chaing Mai in Thailand. I imagine and hope there will be more elephant friendly havens in the near future. It is the leadership and progressive attitude of Lek, Thailand's “elephant whisperer”, other ele lovers, and caring humans that are making an elephant friendly world possible.

Visit, volunteer, and support the magic, the testaments of forgiveness and healing, the grand, intelligent, and family-oriented world of elephants, at the amazing and beautiful Elephant Nature Park, or on-line. Perhaps we can let Lek inspire us to become more conscious of the many cruelty practices that exist in our homelands and by exercising our energy and money wisely, end them. The elephants at the park deeply touched my heart with their stories, compassion, and ability to forgive, and live and love even after terrible trauma. The day I spent with the elephants was my favorite day in Thailand. I only recommend that if you visit the Elephant Nature Park like I did that you stay there more than my one day. I was just getting to know some of the 20+ elephants at the park when the sun began to set and my ride prepared to drive me back to Chaing Mai. For more information on the elephant park visit their website: elephantnaturepark.org.