Benoît Goossens and Nurzhafarina Othman in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Benoît Goossens and Nurzhafarina Othman visit Chiang Mai
The theme of the conference was “Assessing and restoring biodiversity in a human dominated landscape”. Farina presented work on the conservation genetics of the Bornean elephant in Sabah and Benoît advertised the field centre and made some important contacts with the members of the ATBC. We hope that Danau Girang Field Centre can become a host for future ATBC field courses. The next meeting will be in Bali in July 2010.
After the 4-day conference, Benoît and Farina visited the Elephant Nature Park, located in the Mae Taeng Valley, about 1½ hours drive from Chiang Mai. The Park was established in 1995 by Sangduen ‘Lek’ Chailert to welcome elephants that suffered terrible injuries from accidents, abuse and ignorance during their working lives. Here, they can live each day in a peaceful environment. Elephant Nature Park offers an eco-tourism experience of conservation and education where tourists and local people can observe the elephants interacting naturally, but also feed them with fruit and vegetables, bathe them in the river, and walk with them in the bush. We experienced three days and two nights at the Park, maximising our time with the elephants and with the staff who were delighted to have guests from Sabah, Borneo where elephants are not working and roam freely in the tropical forest. And I can now confirm that the mainland Asian elephant is definitely taller than our Bornean elephant…
