Updates From The Field

I want to update you on Losing the Elephants as a lot has happened!
It has has been a wrenching experience, one moment total agony, disbelief, the next joy.

I spent 2 weeks with the Swell Pictures crew in November filming the second part, the rescue of an elephant at the Surin Elephant Roundup with Lek. The people of Surin were traditionally excellent at capturing elephants in Cambodia and then training them as working animals. Today it’s entertainment to make a living, reenactment of past century battles with drugged elephants, rides and selling. We arrived in Surin after an 18hour drive. I felt a sense of foreboding. In the chaos of the elephant breakfast and rides an elephant lost it after being teased with food and attacked the woman who was hospitalized with a coma – don’t know the outcome. From there we went to the Army grounds where many elephants are being kept to look at one Lek hoped to buy, but she had died. We find another lady about 30 who has a broken leg from a logging accident in Burma, almost blind in one eye and then 5 years of begging on the streets of Bangkok. This is one of the most desperate scenes I have ever seen. Mahouts and families are living under tarpaulins surrounded by cooking fires, trash and filth. Poverty with elephants the only means of economic survival are brutally chained, some repeatedly throwing themselves on the ground in desperation. Stab wounds, malnutrition the norm, but we have found “Mae Bua Loi”- Floating Lotus – and the negotiations begin. The price $13,000 is agreed upon. She is going back to her village for a farewell ceremony.

We arrive at dusk the next evening. Lek joins the men sitting on the ground, the centerpiece a pig’s head on a platter with money and plenty of liquor for the goodbye ceremony and many spirits. We have had to rent a truck which is outfitted with tree trunks wrapped with blankets felled in the dark to keep her stable on the 20 hour trip back to the sanctuary. We leave about 8. Lek and I are sitting at her feet where fresh fruits – watermelon, mango, banana, jack fruit - are piled for her to munch on the 20 hour journey ahead. She towers over us, her eyes filled with fear, but she is calm. The next afternoon again sitting in the shadow of this magnificent creature we arrive at the Park. Everyone is waiting for us as we drive toward the river. She is unchained for the first time in how long and walks slowly with her new mahout to the river and then into the distance as the sun sets. Tears of joy abound!

The next morning the most incredible thing happens. Bua Loi is walking and munching on grass when out of the trees comes an elephant. They came together slowly with trunks outreached - much touching and feeling. They had lived together in the same village in Burma and had begged in Bangkok. They had not seen each other for 2 years!

As some of you know ‘Losing the Elephants’ premiered to a packed house at the 2008 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. It has gone on to be an official selection at a number of other prestigious festivals including Telluride Mountain Film and its traveling festival which will bring it to audiences worldwide. National Geographic Television chose it to be a part their series ’Wild Chronicles’ and as a result, a condensed version of the film has been seen by PBS audiences nationwide.

The expected delivery of the re edited film in its full broadcast hour is this summer which will allow ample time to get the film out to the 2009 film festivals including the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. In addition the film will be presented to broadcast outlets, including National Geographic Television and the Discovery Channel. Thank you all so much for being a part of this incredible project.

Just a short update on my recent trip to Kenya and Zambia. WorldWomenWork helped with the installation of a solar system at the Westgate School in Samburu where there has never been electricity  to study by at night. This has caused unbounded joy and the comment “It’s like a city.” WWW is also supporting a “Long Term Monitoring Program” with Save the Elephants which thru daily monitoring of elephants researchers are able to understand their movements, behavior and challenges – poaching and people! I went to the coast just south of the Somalian border to the Kiunga Marine Reserve and met  WWW scholarship students who are the first girls in their families to go to school and are now teaching their fathers what type of hook and net to use for sustainable fishing. This is an area of abject poverty and the conditions of life are extreme. From there I went to Lamu and met another group who attend the Lamu Girls Boarding School. One of their dreams is to actually see zebra, eles in the wild. In Zambia WWW is funding from the “ground up” the Chiawa Womens Association, on the Lower Zambezie.The focus of this project is economic empowerment. They will be trained to draw and paint their own designs on fabrics creating tablecloths etc. for sale in lodges and hotels. Their excitement is not to be believed. Some of the women have never held a pencil. There is a lot to do!   Singer

I’ve just returned from a wonderful trip to Kenya and Zambia. I found many beautiful new items to sell, and I also have exciting conservation news to share.

Rescued baby elephant from abuse (Faa Sai)
Every year Elephant Nature Park arranges a trip to Surin elephant round up festival to meet with more than 200 elephants who come home to join the festival.

Surin is the province that has most elephants in the country with over 60% of the elephant population in Thailand. Most of them work out side Surin, because the area is very dry and they cannot grow enough food. Many of them end up as street walkers, in circuses and shows and for tourist elephant riding.

The first day when we arrived at the camp we saw the man training his elephant. She is just a tiny female infant and her both legs were chained together. The owner forces her to show tricks to tourists as she struggles with the hobbles.

She is so skinny and appears to have mental problems with her head constantly shaking. She shows anger and impatience. Her mahout gave her food but she just threw it away. He told us the infant refuses food and water and screams loudly during the night .

Both her eyes are infected and full of tears all the time and they open only half-way.

We decided to talk to the owner and try to rescue her, but the negotiations are very difficult and an exorbitant price is asked for the youngsters freedom.

First day we go back - no answer. The second day we go again to talk. The volunteers who with us at the trip as Antoinette van Walter from Bring Elephant Home project, Marry , Cheryl , Magarette, pooled their money to start a rescue fund.

With the help of Singer Rankins from World Woman Work, Nancy Abraham from Alexander Abraham Foundation, Bert Von Roemer from Serengeti Foundation, Miss Marry Cover, Miss Cheryl McMeekan, Margaret Steenduk, Ms Elly Muller, Grant Perera and all donors who sent to Bert’s fund we are able to bring her to the park and offer her a new secure home.

We also have more funding from Faa-Sai which we arrange to rescued one more elephant (Tara).

Today Faa Sai walks freely at Elephant Nature Park and she receives plenty of love here with her new family. Mother elephants have accepted and have already adopted her.

Sponsor an event to help raise funds for World Women Work! Please contact Singer Rankin for more information and availability.

“Tara”, meaning river, is the name of a 45 year old female elephant who had worked in tourist camps offering elephant rides and was used to haul heavy logs. She had injured her back when she was just 6 years old as a trekking elephant and was then put back to work at a logging camp.

Losing the Elephants’ examines an animal that is lodged deep in our psyches, and also one in dire straights. It is estimated that by the early 2050s there will no longer be a viable population of Asian Elephants left. Can we be satified with this outcome? Is it important to make sure that the elephants make it?

‘Losing the Elephants’ examines these questions and reveals elephants like no visit to the zoo or circus ever will.Click on movie trailer for a preview of “Losing the elephants”

View the online MOVIE TRAILER and other information about this important film.

“Dear Friends,
I have just returned to Kathmandu from a two week trek in Mustang with friends. Many of the most beautiful things I buy for World Women Work are made here. The medieval feeling of Mustang creates a sense of other-worldliness, but the modern world is infringing upon this as the Chinese are about to build a road from the border of Tibet to Jomsom in Nepal. We met with the Mother’s Group in Jomson. They are a strong group of women who do much to make the environment they live in better and World Women Work is supporting a project with them. (Please see the project section for details). We are all worried about the Maoists, who are trying to overthrow the Nepalese government and are a constant source of friction here. Before we left for Mustang I did a lot of buying so it is always exciting to come back and see the results as much has been made in that time. I love trying on the beautiful pashmina jackets and seeing the jewelry that we have designed. This trip I have branched out into Tibetan rugs as our leader in Mustang has a rug factory where beautiful ones are made by women.
Nepal is very special to me; it is in fact where the idea for World Women Work was born.
I was on a World Wildlife Fund trek on Kanchenjunga in 1998, and as I was walking along one day I suddenly realized that I simply had to do something hands-on to help women and the environment – to help them be self-sufficient, preserve their culture, and combat the globalization of so many areas of the world that I love. I decided the best way I could do this was by buying beautiful things made by women, which would support and empower them economically.
It takes such a small amount to make a huge difference. I love to say that for the cost of a very good bottle of olive oil you can send a young girl to school in Bardia! I hoped by selling these beautiful things to people who have so much, and then returning the profits to educational and conservation programs in these same areas, that I could awaken others to the needs of women, to the necessity of preserving these cultures and wild places – and to make them care as much as I do.
Warm wishes, SingerNote: For more information on Education for Girls: Bardia National Park, Nepal, please see the Projects section

From a letter from Singer Rankin -
“Hello! I am in Kenya on a buying trip before meeting friends who are joining me on a fundraising trip for World Women Work, Katy Payne’s Elephant Communication Project in the Congo, and Iain Douglas-Hamilton’s Elephant Research in Samburu. I buy the most beautiful things here.
“I am staying in Samburu at Oria Douglas-Hamilton’s Elephant Watch Camp. During the day we spend hours with the lephants that Iain is studying. The river is their favorite hangout. We watch as they dig with their feet a huge hole in the bank where they splash and cavort on top of each other. Every one is black with mud and doing something different - fighting, playing, touching - such chaos. Their trunks spike up from the water like antennae. The matriarchs take turns coming with their children. They lie down, rub against the bank, throw mud and generally have the most fabulous time.
“I go to the village, which is outside the park where the women from the Beading Project live. World Women Work is helping to fund this project that was started by Oria Douglas-Hamilton, and will sell the things they make. The land is overgrazed, and it is hot, windy and wild. The women are waiting for me.
“First we go to the house of a young girl who has a WWW Scholarship. The house is made of cow dung and mud. The entrance is tiny and I can barely get through it. There are 3 little rooms with a fire in the middle. I am given a stool - a place of honor - the rest sit on cow hides on the floor. We then walk hand in hand across a dry river bed to the thatched hut that is to be the beading center. The women are so beautifully dressed in bright colors dripping in their beaded jewelry. They stand out against the earth tones of the land like bright birds. This is in many ways like Nepal.”

Note: For more information on The Samburu Women’s Beading Project, please see the Projects section

Dolpo, Nepal

Where Peter Mattheisssen wrote “The Snow Leopard”

My last trip to Nepal in August and September of 2005 was very productive. I bought many new things in Kathmandu for shows this fall. However the main purpose of my visit was a trek in Dolpo in the west of Nepal on the Tibetian border. It was a three week trek in one of the most beautiful areas I have ever been. Because of the Maoist problems, we were not allowed to meet Snow Leopard anti-poaching people or visit some of the schools and other projects that World Women Work has been involved in.