Photo: Flickr user pastorbuhro
Elephant owners are fighting against a new government effort to put their domesticated pachyderms under stricter wildlife-protection laws. The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) is preparing to amend the law to ensure that it covers all elephants in the country.
“We believe the improved law will lead to better control and care for elephants. It should also reduce problem related to the illegal trade of elephants,” DNP deputy chief Theerapat Prayurasiddhi said yesterday.
Officials and non-government groups say wildlife traffickers have for years used fake identity papers to claim that elephants caught in the wild are domesticated so they can be used in tourist shows and their tusks can be legally sold to make ivory products.
Theerapat presided over a public forum yesterday on a proposed amendment to the Wildlife Preservation and Protection Act. The changes focus on elephant protection. Currently, wild elephants are protected under this act but domesticated elephants come under another law enforced by the Interior Ministry.
Dozens of elephant owners showed up at the forum at Rama Gardens Hotel to express strong opposition to the proposed amendment. Many left angry, vowing the fight the changes.
“Domesticated and wild elephants are different,” Ayutthaya Elephant Palace and Royal Kraal’s owner Romthongsai Meephan said.
He also questioned the proposed legal clause that would allow the DNP chief to order the seizure of any domesticated elephant that did not receive appropriate care. “The DNP chief can’t even tell the difference between different types of male elephants,” Romthongsai said.
Netiwin Amornsin said a former DNP chief had his elephant Tangmo seized last year on suspicion that she may have been a wild elephant. But this month public prosecutors dismissed the case after Netiwin was able to produce documents to show the beast was domesticated.
“I contacted the Thailand Elephant Organisation to get my elephant back but found out that she’s dying,” Netiwin lamented. He demanded that the DNP – which has a mixed record of caring for confiscated elephants – give him a new elephant.
Wildlife groups also fear the government will not keep its vow, made by the PM at the Cites conference earlier this year, to ban trade in ivory. Thailand is one of the few countries that still allows trade in ivory. But activist Edwin Wiek said the changes only talk about regulating trade in wildlife parts, with no mention of an ivory trade ban, the Nation reported.
