9.2 An Anthropocentric History.............................
Traditionally, a highly valued species that has lived alongside Thai people for cen-
turies, the elephant’s contributions to Thailand’s history are well documented in Thai
religion and art (Cadigan 2016 ). Elephants played an integral role in the functioning
of everyday life in Thailand for transportation, agricultural activities, and warfare
until the industrial revolution (Cohen 2008 : 163–169). Thereafter, working elephants
in Thailand were mostly used in the logging industry until the 1989 Logging Ban was
implemented by the Royal Thai Government. This statewide ban on commercial
forestry effectively rendered 70% of Thailand’s working elephants without work
practically overnight. Stripped off their incomes and with few alternatives, many
mahouts (the riders and keepers of elephants) were forced to use their elephants for
illegal activities by continuing their logging work, rendering the ban ineffective on an
ecological level (Elephant Nature Foundation, n.d.; Laohachaiboon 2010 ). The other
alternative to working in the illegal logging industry was begging in the busy streets
of Thailand’s major tourist cities which posed serious dangers to the mahout, the
elephant, and tourists (Winkler and Creative 2015 : 5). The proposed solution to what
became known as Thailand’s“elephant problem”was to use elephants in Thailand’s
tourism industry. An initiative was launched by the Thai Elephant Conservation
Center, a government authority, to promote the use of elephants in tourism as a means
to provide sustainable employment for elephants and mahouts (Laohachaiboon
2010 ). Since their traditional purposes had become replaced by machinery, elephants
had no other option but to enter the tourism industry. The elephant, recognized as the
symbolic animal of ancient Siam (Cohen 2008 : 9), was effectively transformed into a
tourist attraction.
Wildlife tourism encompasses the entire realm of tourism associated with
viewing and encountering wildlife ranging from captive, semi-captive, and
non-captive (wild) settings. Its definition includes a variety of interactions from
passive observation to feeding and/or touching the species (Newsome et al. 2005 ).
Cohen ( 2008 : 31) notes that the majority of tourists in Thailand do not prioritize
“authentic”encounters with wild animals as one would in a non-captive setting.
Instead, most tourists seek presentations of animals in semi-captive settings such as
elephant camps, and completely captive settings, as in animal entertainment shows.
The popularity of semi-captive and captive settings mandates the animals’removal
from its natural habitat and marks the prevailing anthropocentric view held by the
wildlife industry. An estimated 2300 of Thailand’s captive elephants are employed
in Thailand’s tourism industry. About 135 elephant camps and other tourist
establishments are located around major foreign tourism centers such as Bangkok,
Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and Phuket (Kontogeorgopoulos2009a,b; Cohen 2008 : 164).
The elephant has become the most widely used captive wildlife in Thailand’s
tourism industry (Cohen 2008 ). Elephant camps vary in their size and the activities
that they offer, although bigger camps tend to offer elephant performances and
smaller camps mainly provide elephant rides (Cohen 2008 ; Winkler and Creative
2015 ).
128 9 Elephants in Tourism. Sustainable and Practical Approaches...