Background of this book

In the face of Asia’s rapid growth, in the near future both the wild and domesticated Asian elephant populations will face decimation, if not near-extinction in the case of wild elephants. There are only 37,000 wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) still surviving in 13 countries spread across a 8,000 kilometer arc of South and Southeast Asia. The primary cause for the population decline is undoubtedly habitat destruction, with wild elephants being increasingly fragmented (the “pocketed herd” phenomenon (posing potential problems in genetic drift. The wild elephant’s precipitous decline is paralleled by a drop in domesticated elephants, which now number only about 16,000.

The FAO Forestry Department’s wildlife and protected area management programme has been active since the 1960s in the conservation of ecosystems and the wildlife species they contain. FAO’s assistance and advice in the conservation of biological diversity has been provided to nearly every member country, through field projects, the provision of expertise, and through publications on major contemporary conservation issues. Within the last decade, FAO has been involved directly or indirectly in the conservation and management of the Asian elephant in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The ongoing GEF-FAO project in Sri Lanka is working on conservation and management, with key project components in institutional capacity building, national park management and human-elephant conflict resolution.

The Forestry Department Group of the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) in Bangkok, under a joint effort with FAO/Rome, has been publishing the Regional Quarterly Bulletin on Wildlife and National Parks Management, Tigerpaper, for the last 20 years. Wildlife experts and conservationists, and members of the IUCN’s Asian Elephant Specialist Group, particularly on the Asian elephant subjects, are major contributors to Tigerpaper.

FAO has, however, noted that the domesticated Asian elephant receives much less global attention than its wild counterpart. The animal is one and the same species, but funding support from donors to the domesticated Asian elephant has been nil. Further, very few government departments have been delegated the responsibility to oversee the conservation and welfare of the domesticated Asian elephant, mainly because of a lack of appropriate policies and legislation, and public awareness on the conservation status of the species.

Recognizing such circumstances in 1985, two FAO officers, Mr. Gilbert Child (former Wildlife and Protected Area Management Officer, Rome), and Dr. Y.S. Rao (the late Regional Forestry Officer, Bangkok), launched a study for in-house use on the domesticated Asian elephant by recruiting Mr. Richard Lair. In 1994, we decided to commission a book for publication based on the foundations of Mr. Lair’s earlier work. Starting in May 1995, Mr. Lair visited countries to collect the latest information and reviewed a voluminous amount of literature. In August 1997, the work crystallized into the present book, Gone Astray.

This book, which you may have opened out of curiosity, is a milestone in the field. This is well worth reading to become aware of one of the most pertinent species conservation issues at the close of this century: the future of the Asian elephant in domesticity.

Finally, we wish to convey many warm thanks to the author, Mr. Richard Lair, for providing his extensive knowledge on the domesticated Asian elephant on behalf of the welfare and survival of this endangered species.