Beast of Burden
Once revered for its attributes of nobility and empathy, Asian elephants are now nearing extinction in Laos, a land where thousands of these majestic pachyderms once roamed. The centuries-old bond between man and elephant has been fractured: The Mahouts still revere them, but many ordinary Laotians have never even seen one. CARSTEN STORMER ventures into this landlocked Southeast Asian nation to see if there is hope for either mammal
The Asian elephant is in danger of extinction. The reason: humans. Their last hope: also humans.
The sky was filled with cirrocumulus clouds when Mr. Peng saw Little Moon crying. It was shackled, legs tied with rattan loops, and locked away in a bamboo cage that separated it from its mother, Moon, who was being held at bay. She roared—panic stricken—and kicked at the men who had taken her calf.
The entire village had gathered to witness Moon’s taming. The shaman flung a chicken on its back to expel the evil spirits and demons, driving out its inherent wildness. Everybody applauded enthusiastically and cheered during the course of the ceremony, and they laughed when Moon struggled to defend herself. Only Mr. Peng, then 12 years old, saw the tears in those tiny eyes. The elephant calf struggling in its cage was actually named Chang, which means “moon” in Laotian. She was the first working animal owned by Mr. Peng, a Mahout (elephant keeper), who has spent his entire life with these mammals. Forty-three years later, when he tells the story of Moon, his voice still struggles to stay even.
His sadness is justified. Laos used to be called “Lane Xang” or the Land of a Million Elephants. The Elephas Maximus (the Asian elephant) is a little smaller than its African cousin. It has funny ears, and is a hefty eater who can consume 250 kilograms of plants and weigh up to 5 tons. A strong animal can cost up to 12,000 euros and be worth around 60,000 euros for the owner.
In a country where people are destitute, wood logging is highly profitable, and so the mighty working animals destroy the very habitat tHAT Their fellow elephants need to survive.
Many houses have encroached on the jungle now—the refuge of these animals—and Laos’s elephant population is no longer in the millions but closer to 1,500, with less than 1,000 living in the wild. The rest are imprisoned and doomed to keep working, oftentimes instrumental in the logging of forests, where precious woods like rosewood and teak grow like weeds. In a country where people are destitute, wood logging is highly profitable, and so the mighty working animals destroy the very habitat their fellow elephants need to survive, continuing a vicious cycle that cannot easily be broken. Empathy, after all, has never satisfied anybody’s hunger.
“We have lost respect for the animals,” says Mr. Peng. “They are seen as huge ATMs who will provide their owners with income. That is all that counts.” If this mindset continues, we will witness the last generation of pachyderms in Laos, and it would mean that the earth’s largest mammal would be extinct within the next couple of decades.
Mr. Peng lives in the village of Hongsa, a two-day trip outside the capital of Vientiane, located in the Sayaburi province in the north-east of the country—a region that is said to have the highest population of working elephants. The few herds of wild animals, on the other hand, are spread out across Laos, where one finds them in areas largely untouched by humans, if one’s lucky—an odd mark of the Asian continent that claims its existence. Sadly, in cases where a wild herd stampedes through the fields of poor rice farmers, it doesn’t mean that the animals have interfered with humans. Rather, it’s the other way around, since the elephants don’t have anywhere else to go.
If this mindset continues, we will witness the last generation of pachyderms in Laos, and it would mean that the earth’s largest mammal would be extinct within the next couple of decades.
On the way to Sayanbouri, the exotic Asian landscape as depicted in Western movies rolls by the window. For many wonderful hours you can see the jungle, rice paddies, water buffalos, huts on stilts, and bamboo forests, as well as small villages with crooked fences and unpaved roads. Beautiful girls pass grilled goods through the window, like chicken, fish, or rat. It is a postcard from another faraway world, preserved through war and communism, which no longer exists anywhere else but here—mercilessly beautiful and reason enough to take a closer look. Sometimes you see Mahouts riding their elephants, and the falang (as foreigners are called here), press their noses against the window of the decrepit jeep that is struggling to make its way up the steep hills. In the silence, their excitement is palpable; their faces are full of respect and curiosity, enamored by the majestic animal that once graced the country’s royal emblem. Every Laotian child knows about them from old legends and oral tales.
The jungle of Laos is a living, breathing creature. It rustles, screeches, hums, whistles, and buzzes. It is humid, and the heavy air sticks to one’s body like a damp blanket. Glistening beads of sweat cover Mr. Peng’s forehead, and dark spots appear on his khaki-colored shirt. Suddenly, they appear directly in front of us: Buaban, Serth, and Bunthom. The three elephants are chained and pulling teakwood trunks up the hill, as reliable as pistons in high quality engines. They grumble and sigh. Bamboo sticks crack on their two-inch thick skin. “Pai, pai. Tchoo, tchoo!” the Mahouts bark in command. “Stop, stop. Pull, pull!”
Mr. Peng greets the Mahouts. Everybody knows each other, and they exchange cigarettes and swap funny stories. We sit down in a forest path plowed by the elephants, and Mr. Peng reminisces about the past, a glorious time when the gentle giant was a symbol of national pride, and when life in the village was defined by their rhythm. He imitates the rattling of the chains. Clunk, clunk, clunk. This is what it sounded like when they pulled the massive logs over the dirt roads they call streets. It was the soundtrack of his childhood, and back then, Mahouts caught wild elephants in the jungle bordering the village, tamed them, and trained them as working animals.
There used to be hundreds of animals in the forests around Hongsa. “It was not uncommon to have an elephant in the garden,” he says. “Upon waking up in the morning, you look out the window and you seem them.”
