In the popular tourist destination of Thailand, one of the country's icons - the once-worshipped elephant - is under threat. Picture one of these noble beasts tied by its front leg to a pole in a Thai Buddhist temple for 17 years, by a chain a mere 70cm long. Last year the temple monks were approached to see what could be done for the elephant. This, the monks were told, was cruelty. However, to release this elephant, the monks wanted money to buy another. Elephants attract donations to the temple. After much discussion the temple agreed to build an enclosure for the elephant which the TSPCA would pay for. Before the construction was complete, however, time ran out for the elephant, and she finally went berserk, broke free and was shot dead by the police. It was a question of public safety.
Threats to Thai elephants are coming only from human exploitation, directly and indirectly, according to Roger Lohan of the Thai Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I recently visited his office near Patpong in central Bangkok, where with a handful of volunteers, he is battling to preserve the health and well-being of this endangered giant.
There are many organisations dedicated to the conservation of the elephant, but Lohan is one of the few people in Asia concerned with the question of cruelty. He welcomed me into his office and told me how he works in the hope that people will begin to understand the plight of the elephant in Thailand today.
On Friday nights Lohan patrols the city of Bangkok seeking out elephants and their mahouts (keepers). For a couple of years now the elephants have been brought into the city from the north, where their natural habitat is disappearing due to eucalyptus plantation for the paper industry. The mahouts claim the elephants have nothing to eat, and so they bring them on a six-hour journey to the city to beg.
The truth is that in Bangkok the elephants are starving, they eat polluted food and, according to Lohan, without exception they have serious stomach problems. But that is only part of the sad story. Due to the economic situation, Bangkok is full of abandoned building projects, and the elephants walk on nails in building sites and get foot infections which never heal. How extraordinary that an animal that can tip-toe on a cliff top and step over anything in the jungle, cannot recognise the urban dangers which are causing such problems.
The political situation is complicated. Bangkok has many districts, each governed by different police stations, and the problems of transporting an elephant are not small. Sometimes, when the city has organised the transport of an elephant back to the north, the mahout has paid off the driver, and the elephant has been sent back to the city. During the day, the elephants are hidden on wasteland around the city where they never have enough shade from the sun, they eat contaminated food and encounter countless dangers underfoot, and their eyes stream continuously from the appalling pollution that Bangkok is famous for. As night falls, the mahouts bring the elephants along the streets where they beg all night, walking from one side of the city to the other through rubbish and debris, hiding from the police.
A mahout can make 90,000 bhats (£1,800) a month by begging. In a country with such poverty and economic turmoil, this is no small sum. So now elephants are being rented out from the original mahouts and hired on to other beggars.
The problems of the Thai elephants in Bangkok are only part of the picture of the role of the elephant in south-east Asia. Wild elephants are listed as protected animals under the Conservation Act of 1992, but are now felt to be endangered since the declining numbers of wild elephants consist mainly of females and young males without tusks. Their natural habitat is vanishing, and illegal poaching continues. Domestic elephants fare little better since they are still listed under the Vehicle Act of 1939, when there were hardly any cars and elephants were the main means of transport. Since then, elephants have been used for logging. Although logging is now outlawed, illegal logging means that the working elephant is often forced to take drugs to work harder.
There are now estimated to be 3,000 domesticated elephants around 41 provinces in the north and east of Thailand. The majority of the eastern elephants are being used by beggars in the major cities. Since Lohan began his work two years ago, the number in Bangkok has halved. He has had two years of very hard work, carried out with very little support, and there have been many low moments. On one occasion a 77-year-old female fell into a sewer and died because nobody could lift her out. Two weeks later a younger elephant fell into a swamp just outside Bangkok.
But Lohan is adamant that the work will go on and continually approaches the authorities for help in bringing together a team to solve the problem. His solutions include the removal of all elephants from the Vehicle Act, introducing animal welfare legislation, revising all registration records, banning elephant roaming on the streets and upgrading the mahout status. He also calls for the provision of a yearly government budget for elephant welfare.
Arguments against Lohan's battle for the welfare of elephants will focus on the poverty suffered by the population of Thailand itself. There is no doubt about the extent of the economic problems faced by the Thai people, and thousands of young people from the north have moved south to find employment in the infamous sex industry. Tourism is vital to Thailand, and while many foreigners flock to the beautiful beaches in the south, few will see the dire poverty of the north and north-east. This is a problem to be tackled by central government, and it needs a long-term view. The tourist can help by not giving money to begging mahouts in the city and by not buying ivory products in the markets. The noble beast, which once carried Thai kings into battle and until 1917 was emblazoned on the national flag, should not be sacrificed to the urban jungle which has been created by manmade social and economic mismanagement.
The Thai Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is at: 120 Silom Road, Bangkok 10500, Thailand