Statement by Antoinette van de Water, founder of Bring the Elephant Home

Sunday, November 8, 2009

This week a picture about the mating of elephants—one that was taken four years ago and then published in my book The Great Elephant Escape—became hot news in the Thai media. On Monday, November 2, 2009, Thai Rath newspaper published that picture on the front page, along with the claim that a Dutch writer was insulting Thailand before the eyes of the whole world. The words in the article, however, were not mine. I did not do an interview with Thai Rath, and my book does not contain the text they claimed it did. After my protests, Thai Rath did in fact rectify the story, but other media had already picked it up and sent it snowballing into the public domain. Other organizations stated that the picture is fake, published only to discredit Thailand and to promote the book. Elephant camps demanded that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand revoke my visa.

I had a chance to clarify my story on Channel 7, the Nation TV, TAN media network, Thai Rath, and today in The Nation Weekend magazine. With this statement about my background and the reasons for my being in Thailand, I want to make the information accessible to everybody.

About the picture of the elephant mating

During my first year in Thailand, I visited many places where there were elephants to learn about them. During this learning period I saw the beauty in Thai elephants and immediately fell in love with them. But I witnessed some darker sides too, like elephants begging in Bangkok, and how people handle elephants mating. In my book I only describe what I see. In the picture you can see what I saw, it tells the whole story. I don’t blame anyone in the book for how this particular mating occurred. I didn’t state that this is happening everywhere in Thailand. I only compared this event with the mating of elephants in a natural way that I witnessed before. While it doesn’t look gentle, at least the elephants themselves decided that they were ready and the female was flanked by two girlfriends. In the book I call it mating, not rape. It’s up to other people to decide what they would call it and up to the elephant experts to explain what is happening exactly. If I misunderstood, I apologize. I never approached the media to publish this picture, and I never published articles only about elephant abuse. We focus on positive change and the beauty of Thai elephants. By doing this we try to show that there’s a different way. In general, my book is a positive book that actually promotes Thailand as a tourist destination. But the difficult situation of elephants and mahouts had a huge impact on me. They awoke my passion and determination to do something to create a better future for them, and it was also part of the reason why I started the organization, Bring the Elephant Home.

If I had wanted this type of media attention to promote the book, I would have approached English-language media and would have done it a long time ago. I don’t make any money from the book; the royalties were paid in books that I donated to the Elephant Nature Park. I don’t work for Thai elephants for my own benefit. But I try to find funds from overseas in order to help Thai elephants and to support Thai organizations.

Many tourists and volunteers came to Thailand after they read the book to support Thai elephants and to share our passion for Thai elephants. I love Thailand, Thai people, and its elephants, and I feel more home here than in the Netherlands. I work only with Thai people. Our partner organizations are Thai, most of our volunteers are Thai, and so are my friends.

Hopefully the discussion about this picture will serve to focus on the fate of the Thai elephant. I feel very upset, sad, and afraid about what happened this week. I want to continue our projects to support Thai elephants for a long time.

History of Antoinette van de Water

The idea of Bring the Elephant Home arose when I was doing volunteer work in the Elephant Nature Park in 2002. In this sanctuary for retired elephants, I fell in love with Thai elephants and with the country. When visiting Bangkok, I encountered a baby elephant in much need, begging for food on Khao San Road. The baby had a look of fear in his eyes that I will never forget. It broke my heart, but I wasn’t able to bring this begging baby elephant home to the Elephant Nature Park. This encounter and the experience at The Elephant Nature Park impressed me so much that I came back two years later to volunteer once again. This time I wanted to do much more. With lots of ideas, inspiration, and determination to help begging elephants, I returned to the Netherlands to make this dream of mine come true. I registered The Bring the Elephant Home Foundation and started fundraising activities. My passion and love for Thai elephants got so strong that I left my family, friends, job, and house in the Netherlands and moved to Thailand.

The more I learned about elephants, the more I became aware that deforestation is the cause of many problems elephants are facing. To help elephants in Thailand, we needed to do something about that. Over the last two years, we planted over 150,000 trees for elephants in four areas where elephants are in need of space and food. For this project, we are also working closely with Thai organizations. Their experience, knowledge, and networks are much valued and indispensable. It is my strong belief that together we can make a difference for Thai elephants.

To create alternatives for street begging, we started a community development project in Buriram. The villagers plant trees, and for every tree planted Bring the Elephant Home deposits money in the newly created village bank. The villagers can start income generating projects with a micro-loan from this village bank. This improves the economic situation of the villagers and the environment as well. Through the village bank, all villagers get the opportunity to build a future.

By planting trees, a natural environment with food for the elephants is created. And the project is a positive example of sustainable and animal friendly tourism. On the elephant island, for instance, you can see that people and elephants can live in peace together.

The Trees for Elephants project won the World of Difference award of Vodafone and the Terre des Femmes award of Yves Rocher in the Netherlands. The Animal Planet documentary Elephant Return to the Wild won two awards and has been broadcasted worldwide.

Mission of Bring the Elephant Home

One cannot imagine a future without elephants living in Thailand. And yet, elephants are disappearing.

Bring the Elephant Home is actively participating in the protection of the Asian elephant, which is threatened with extinction. Asian elephants are increasingly confronted with a lack of space and food. Therefore, our aims are reforestation, protection of the remaining forests, and solving human-elephant conflicts. New forest planted for the Thai elephants is one solution. The elephants get more space, a greater variety of food, the area is protected against further demolition, and the forests help solve the conflict with local farmers.

In our opinion, all elephants should be living in the wild. If this is not possible, they should be able to live in an environment as natural as possible, where they can live as normal as possible. Therefore, we focus on projects that can make this possible: elephant parks and reserves.

We understand that using elephants to make money is necessary for the survival of elephants. Bring the Elephant Home supports projects that work with elephants in a natural way, without hampering or going against the animal’s natural behavior. Therefore, we plead for and support animal friendly, natural, and sustainable elephant projects. We want to help owners and mahouts find a different way to earn a living with their elephants, where the elephants have a chance to roam, find their own food, live together with other elephants, and breed in a natural way.

Conclusion

Bring the Elephant Home wants to bring about a better future for the Thai elephants with a positive approach. We try to accomplish this by promoting animal-friendly ecotourism, as well as by the conservation and creation of a natural environment for the elephants, producing healthy food for the elephants, furthering alternative employment for elephant keepers, and helping to solve human-elephant conflicts.