Curb the trend !
Conservation Project
Ecology and culture
There are no « happy » elephants without forest !
Our objectives
At Aïravata we believe that elephants should live in their natural environment, as the forest is the only place where they can find the complete balanced diet that their metabolism needs.
We also think that being social animals, elephants need to be able to interact and live together, it is vital to them .
By bringing males and females together in the right environment and the minimum level of stress we hope to breed the last remaining animals and give a future to the species in Cambodia.
Keeping elephants in their home province of Ratanakiri is also allowing the remaining mahouts to carry on with a 5000 years old tradition that would otherwise be certainly doomed.
The extinction of elephants in Ratanakiri would also lead to the disappearance of all the knowledge passed on from generation to generation by families of mahouts. From time immemorial, this knowledge has been passed on from generation to generation and its disappearance would have been a cultural loss that we were not ready to let happen.
Further down from the clear forest where our elephants currently evolve there is a superb mature forest of about 300 hectares that, thanks to a hilly terrain has been largely protected from deforestation.
The three villages owning this forest have agreed to let us develop ecotourism in various forms, the villagers promised not to log anymore but they still can gather small wood, medicinal plants and hunt small animals.