Yeah, if I'd have a few million dollars and a few thousand hectares of land, I might actually give the whole thing a try! The considerate and gentle personalities of individual elephants like Dor Daeng got me thinking that your ideas might work in the long term - environmental & social conditions permitted.
If you ever feel like writing a short piece of fiction about some future culture of jungle dwellers that have successfully domesticated elephants, I would LOVE to take a deep dive into the details of your ideas!
It's maddening, really. Seeing how people deal with elephants makes me quite misanthropic at times. The cultural programming and casual human supremacism is especially obvious in those instances, when confronted with an animal that threatens our perceived status "at the top of the pyramid."
But since a lot of the extreme fear among farmers here is actually 99 percent irrational (stories of elephant damage get exaggerated to an almost comical degree in a twisted version of the telephone game), we do have a tiny bit of hope that our approach might - over time - change a few minds, at least a bit. Just seeing that we're not as terrified as everyone else might already calm some of them down a bit.
Another thing that plays into this is that most fruit farmers here have so much land that it really wouldn't matter if the elephants eat some of their fruit or knock over a tree here or there. It's more a matter of conviction, of not wanting to share ANYTHING with any other living being - their fruit is THEIRS, because THEY planted it. Myopic thinking 101.
Pretty damn selfish as well, but I guess that's what the capitalist mindset does to farmers.
Their Elephant Research Manager Ave Owen once visited our farm, and they are doing great work. We had pretty much the same views on the issue. A lot of what they do is research and educational stuff, and they even have a pilot project in Prachuap Khiri Khan province where they replace pineapple farming (which led to massive human-elephant conflict) with crops that elephants don't eat, while at the same time restoring areas where the elephants can feed unimpeded.
But there is a considerable part of the rural population that you just can't talk to about this issue. People with the same basic psychology as "man-vs-nature" farmers all over the world. The exact same type of people call for the extermination of wolves in Germany right now.
Really good, i've been reading a lot about elephant culling in Africa lately, a necessary evil what with so many people leaving less and less habitat. Whole herds coming in to take your crops. Thankless stuff. Happy your scenario is not so fraught.
When i was a young man i had an equally young coleague friend squashed flat by a bull Asian elephant, knocked him down from behind and did a partial headstand on his torso.
Depressing times, that's for sure. As I said in my last piece about elephants, herbivorous megafauna and farmers simply can't coexist in the long term, because other animals don't concede to (imaginary) human property rights. There used to be elephants in Mesopotamia and China, until they were killed off by the farmers there.
We are lucky to have quite a bit of forest cover in our province, and right now the Rangers (and, by extension, the Royal Forest Department) actually do quite a decent job of protecting it! (A bit too reductionist perhaps, but I won't complain.)
One of our friends here, a skilled woodsman who went subsistence hunting on a regular basis, was killed by a herd of elephants a few years back. Tragedies certainly happen.
But what I tell people here when they ask me if I'm afraid of elephants is that I'm actually much more terrified of riding my motorbike. Chances that I die in a traffic accident are orders of magnitude larger, and I've had a few close calls. Accidents kill over 20,000 people annually here, elephants only about 10. Those damn psychological biases, right?
Oh, and good luck with those grizzlies! I imagine you're no stranger to "feeling small."
Another lovely article, sounds like a very beautiful moment. I wish we had any megafauna here, there is actually an elephant reserve in the mountains of East TN believe it or not (apparently they don’t mind the cold), so sometimes I think about starting my own haha. It’s good that you are still respectful of these powerful beings on the land in these disrespectful times.
Do you find pruning to be necessary, or useful? Curious what, when and how you prune.
Also, last time we talked it was about you looking into Guinea pigs or some other tropical starch to protein converter. How did that turn out?
It sure sounds like those elephants could need a bit of good old Animal Liberation once the time is right - to spice things up a bit!
With the extreme growth rates here in the tropics (and especially with a rather small piece of land), pruning is actually indispensable. We prune almost all trees at least occasionally, to thin out lower branches, correct their form so they fit in better among the other trees, or make them to grow taller before spreading their crown. Others need to be pruned to produce good fruit sets or to make harvesting easier, like rambutan, peanut butter fruit or jackfruit.
If we wouldn't prune, the garden would look decidedly different (a lot more chaotic), the largest trees would not be the ones we deem most important, and we would have much less of an edge effect to utilize. It would be extremely dark, and we couldn't grow much in terms of vegetables or other annuals.
In a way we're just imitating natural disturbances (which would otherwise happen through storms, treefalls - or elephants) which rejuvenate the ecosystem and increase productivity & vigor, albeit with a bit higher frequency and precision.
I have a lot of respect for the go-with-the-flow/wu-wai approach of Fukuoka, but that stuff just would never, ever, ever work in a tropical climate - at least not with a system as densely planted as ours.
Mother Nature is powerful and strong-willed here, so we humans have to use a little bit more pressure to nudge her into the direction we have in mind.
We still haven't had any time to look deeper into Guinea pigs, but to be honest we're still quite satisfied with the rabbits! Things are a bit slower than expected (the neighbors' hunting dogs killed our original breeding pair, so we gotta wait until the next generation reaches maturity), but maybe that's good so all the fodder banks we've planted have time to grow. Otherwise we might have found ourselves running low on rabbit forage during dry season!
If something interesting happens, I'll make sure to include it in one of the next rewilding updates!
Wonderful story! My mind races with the opportunities for humans and elephants to come into closer harmony in the millennia that lie ahead.
Thanks, Shane!
Yeah, if I'd have a few million dollars and a few thousand hectares of land, I might actually give the whole thing a try! The considerate and gentle personalities of individual elephants like Dor Daeng got me thinking that your ideas might work in the long term - environmental & social conditions permitted.
If you ever feel like writing a short piece of fiction about some future culture of jungle dwellers that have successfully domesticated elephants, I would LOVE to take a deep dive into the details of your ideas!
Since you have lived around elephants more than me, maybe it is something we can write together one day?
Wow! Amazing story. I love them. It's so unfair that people push them out, then kill them for attempting to simply live.
Thanks a lot, Max, glad you enjoyed it!
It's maddening, really. Seeing how people deal with elephants makes me quite misanthropic at times. The cultural programming and casual human supremacism is especially obvious in those instances, when confronted with an animal that threatens our perceived status "at the top of the pyramid."
But since a lot of the extreme fear among farmers here is actually 99 percent irrational (stories of elephant damage get exaggerated to an almost comical degree in a twisted version of the telephone game), we do have a tiny bit of hope that our approach might - over time - change a few minds, at least a bit. Just seeing that we're not as terrified as everyone else might already calm some of them down a bit.
Another thing that plays into this is that most fruit farmers here have so much land that it really wouldn't matter if the elephants eat some of their fruit or knock over a tree here or there. It's more a matter of conviction, of not wanting to share ANYTHING with any other living being - their fruit is THEIRS, because THEY planted it. Myopic thinking 101.
Pretty damn selfish as well, but I guess that's what the capitalist mindset does to farmers.
Are there any local organizations or NGOs doing that basic educational work on elephant co-existence and advocating for them, David?
Very, very few. One of the better-known ones is actually an international one (employing many foreigners, not exclusively Thai people):
Bring The Elephant Home (https://bring-the-elephant-home.org/).
Their Elephant Research Manager Ave Owen once visited our farm, and they are doing great work. We had pretty much the same views on the issue. A lot of what they do is research and educational stuff, and they even have a pilot project in Prachuap Khiri Khan province where they replace pineapple farming (which led to massive human-elephant conflict) with crops that elephants don't eat, while at the same time restoring areas where the elephants can feed unimpeded.
But there is a considerable part of the rural population that you just can't talk to about this issue. People with the same basic psychology as "man-vs-nature" farmers all over the world. The exact same type of people call for the extermination of wolves in Germany right now.
Really good, i've been reading a lot about elephant culling in Africa lately, a necessary evil what with so many people leaving less and less habitat. Whole herds coming in to take your crops. Thankless stuff. Happy your scenario is not so fraught.
When i was a young man i had an equally young coleague friend squashed flat by a bull Asian elephant, knocked him down from behind and did a partial headstand on his torso.
We live with grizzly bears here. So far so good.
Depressing times, that's for sure. As I said in my last piece about elephants, herbivorous megafauna and farmers simply can't coexist in the long term, because other animals don't concede to (imaginary) human property rights. There used to be elephants in Mesopotamia and China, until they were killed off by the farmers there.
We are lucky to have quite a bit of forest cover in our province, and right now the Rangers (and, by extension, the Royal Forest Department) actually do quite a decent job of protecting it! (A bit too reductionist perhaps, but I won't complain.)
One of our friends here, a skilled woodsman who went subsistence hunting on a regular basis, was killed by a herd of elephants a few years back. Tragedies certainly happen.
But what I tell people here when they ask me if I'm afraid of elephants is that I'm actually much more terrified of riding my motorbike. Chances that I die in a traffic accident are orders of magnitude larger, and I've had a few close calls. Accidents kill over 20,000 people annually here, elephants only about 10. Those damn psychological biases, right?
Oh, and good luck with those grizzlies! I imagine you're no stranger to "feeling small."
Another lovely article, sounds like a very beautiful moment. I wish we had any megafauna here, there is actually an elephant reserve in the mountains of East TN believe it or not (apparently they don’t mind the cold), so sometimes I think about starting my own haha. It’s good that you are still respectful of these powerful beings on the land in these disrespectful times.
Do you find pruning to be necessary, or useful? Curious what, when and how you prune.
Also, last time we talked it was about you looking into Guinea pigs or some other tropical starch to protein converter. How did that turn out?
Thanks again, friend.
It sure sounds like those elephants could need a bit of good old Animal Liberation once the time is right - to spice things up a bit!
With the extreme growth rates here in the tropics (and especially with a rather small piece of land), pruning is actually indispensable. We prune almost all trees at least occasionally, to thin out lower branches, correct their form so they fit in better among the other trees, or make them to grow taller before spreading their crown. Others need to be pruned to produce good fruit sets or to make harvesting easier, like rambutan, peanut butter fruit or jackfruit.
If we wouldn't prune, the garden would look decidedly different (a lot more chaotic), the largest trees would not be the ones we deem most important, and we would have much less of an edge effect to utilize. It would be extremely dark, and we couldn't grow much in terms of vegetables or other annuals.
In a way we're just imitating natural disturbances (which would otherwise happen through storms, treefalls - or elephants) which rejuvenate the ecosystem and increase productivity & vigor, albeit with a bit higher frequency and precision.
I have a lot of respect for the go-with-the-flow/wu-wai approach of Fukuoka, but that stuff just would never, ever, ever work in a tropical climate - at least not with a system as densely planted as ours.
Mother Nature is powerful and strong-willed here, so we humans have to use a little bit more pressure to nudge her into the direction we have in mind.
We still haven't had any time to look deeper into Guinea pigs, but to be honest we're still quite satisfied with the rabbits! Things are a bit slower than expected (the neighbors' hunting dogs killed our original breeding pair, so we gotta wait until the next generation reaches maturity), but maybe that's good so all the fodder banks we've planted have time to grow. Otherwise we might have found ourselves running low on rabbit forage during dry season!
If something interesting happens, I'll make sure to include it in one of the next rewilding updates!