Welcome, in a Big Way: Elephant Nature Park

At Loop, we don't waste a lot of time. Just after our arrival in Chiang Mai, we head to the Elephant Nature Park, about 20 miles north of the city, where you’ll live for the first week of the program. The Elephant Nature Park (ENP) is home to over thirty rescued elephants, there because they are no longer able to work in elephant-based industries like logging or inhumane trekking operations.

The reserve is vast, peaceful, and amazing. Waking up in your raised bamboo hut in the morning, you'll look out the window to see the red sun rising over a dusty bank of trees. Feet away, a mother elephant throws arcs of dirt over its back while a baby elephant ruffles through the tall grass with its trunk. And for the rest of the day you'll be a part of their family. It's like living in a wildlife documentary, seeing these amazing creatures in their homeland

Elephant Nature Park was founded twenty years ago in an effort to provide sanctuary for those elephants who, disabled or otherwise unable to work, would have been severely mistreated or killed.

These elephants are given a chance to live and be cared for in a peaceful setting. Eventually many of the elephants at the ENP will be released to live as they would in the wild on a forest reserve owned by the ENP.

Many of the elephants have been rescued from Burma, where logging is still legal. Each elephant has a mahout, a trainer who stays with his elephant for the elephant’s life, and many of the mahouts have also escaped from Burma’s oppressive government regime. The park provides each mahout with food, shelter, and a fair wage in addition to English lessons and a chance to make additional income by selling souvenirs on consignment in the park's gift shop.

In addition to serving as a sanctuary, ENP strives to preserve and repair the struggling rain forest habitat in its surrounding area. The park reintroduces native species to around 30 acres per year, and will do so for the next five years, in order to turn abandoned farmland back into climates suitable for elephants to live and breed.

Our students will live for one week at the Elephant Nature Park as volunteers. The experience is unforgettable and life-changing. Students live in double rooms in wood and thatch huts on stilts that are spread throughout the property. From their window, they can often see the elephants sleeping, eating, and interacting with one another and with their mahouts.

Each day at the Elephant Nature Park is different, but the general schedule includes a rotating set of responsibilities shared by the volunteers and the staff: buying, cutting and picking food for the elephants (no small task), taking the elephants to the river to bathe (no dry task), feeding the elephants, cleaning up after the elephants, and other routine property maintenance.

The first few evenings, the ENP provides some kind of educational event in order to help volunteers understand the treatment of both domestic and wild elephants in Thailand. For the rest of the week, evenings are ours to meet together or goof off.

The food at ENP is incredible: an amazing selection of vegetarian dishes along with the best fried chicken you’ve ever had. If you’ve never had green papaya salad, a Thai favorite, you’re in for a real treat. This isn’t camp food; even the pickiest eaters will find something to love. When it’s time to go you may miss the food more than the elephants.

The volunteers will take some of the elephants on a trip to the ENP’s jungle property. The trip is about two miles, one mile by truck and one mile on foot with the elephants. The elephants spend the night at the property free to roam the area jungle, while the volunteers have a night in more rustic accommodations to learn about Thai culture and the elephants’ natural habitat.

The best part of the ENP experience is the time volunteers have to independently learn about and interact with the elephants and their caretakers. The staff is extremely knowledgeable about animal behaviors, elephant family behaviors, local conservation efforts, and the local animal habitats.

Students will be encouraged to take opportunities to observe the elephants in person and learn about them by talking to conservationists, mahouts, the staff veterinarian, and our faculty.

Since ENP offers its Mahouts, many of whom are Burmese, English classes in the evenings, students are allowed and encouraged to participate in the Mahout’s learning process to facilitate a two-way learning exchange.

The Elephant Nature Park has been recognized time and again as a tireless, compassionate and effective conservation effort.

The Team of The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association recently presented founder Lek Chailert with the Shining World Compassion Award for demonstrating "a pure heart, loving concern, and selfless service and caring for Thailand’s magnificent elephants.”

Lek, an inspiring leader and conservationist, will be coming to speak personally to our students about her project and what they can do to help it, and their own conservation projects, succeed.