Yesterday, Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s Chang[e] Caravan set off from Khao Yai to send a message to the world’s political leaders to act against the threat of disastrous climate change.

‘Chang’ means ‘Elephant’ in Thai, one of the most revered creatures in the country, but elephants can suffer greatly when removed from the wild. Five Asian Elephants in the Caravan were rescued and rehabilitated from Bangkok’s streets by the Thai Elephant Research and Conservation Fund.

Over the next two weeks, the elephants and activists will travel 250km south to the outskirts of the capital to raise awareness about the delicate interconnection between wildlife and climate.

Before setting off, mahout elders held a ceremony, praying to the spirits of ancestor mahouts for safety and luck on the journey. Thai Buddhist monks also blessed the caravan.

Along the way they will hold activities for students and communities on elephant and forest conservation, climate change impacts and renewable energies. Follow the caravan’s progress on Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s blog.

Improved protection for the World Heritage listed Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex was the focus of a multi-stakeholder meeting at Khao Yai National Park on August 8, 2009.

Laws for forest conservation and their application across the vast and important reserve were discussed by senior members of the Royal Thai Police, Army, Department of National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, the regional ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network, as well as district prosecutors, local elected officials and community representatives.

FREELAND was allocated a session to detail our ranger training programs and community outreach pilots. As the only non-government conservation group invited to present, FREELAND’s important role in conservation of the Forest Complex was acknowledged and applauded.

However, the meeting also highlighted that much more work needs to be done (particularly in the area of community engagement for forest stewardship) to tackle threats such as poaching, illegal tree cutting and encroachment.

FREELAND staff used this occasion to provide Nature Crime Investigation manuals to the Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police, as part of ongoing efforts to help build law enforcement capacity for biodiversity protection and keep environmental crime high on the agenda.

Late last month, FREELAND trialed a new reforestation approach – planting trees that will bear edible fruits and foliage to encourage animals and life to rapidly return to forest areas damaged by encroachment.

Almost 200 children from five schools in the Lampiek and Kok Krachai districts joined park rangers, FREELAND staff and villagers to plant the trees in a 20 rai area of the remote Thap Lan National Park, which extends east from Khao Yai in the forest complex.

In total, more than 2,500 trees were planted as part of FREELAND’s Edible Foliage Pockets trial [more on this concept soon], including:

Like previous reforestation projects, this planting during the rainy season gives saplings the best chance to thrive.

In addition to restoring habitat for wildlife and helping to mitigate global warming, FREELAND reforestation activities are organized to provide:

• Employment for local villagers;
• Positive engagement between local communities and park protection authorities;
• Education on the importance of conservation for local students;
• An opportunity for citizen and Corporate Social Responsibility.

This project was made possible with the kind support of Khun Jiroj Nimmannit and Sanctuary V. Please contact FREELAND if you would like to be involved in the next reforestation project.

Australian volunteer Laura Mitchell has been helping the Surviving Together team monitor wildlife in protected areas.

Working closely with field staff and local rangers, our Aussie volunteer recorded signs of numerous indigenous wildlife by examining tracks and setting camera traps deep inside the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex, in protected areas such as Thap Lan National Park.

According to Laura, wildlife conservation in Thailand is an interesting and challenging change from her last job – working with koalas on Australia’s Kangaroo Island, where poaching is non-existent.

When not trapping unsuspecting wildlife on film, Laura found time to visit FREELAND’s community outreach projects in the villages around Khao Yai to see how small-scale agriculture can provide sustainable incomes for former poachers.

Other exciting highlights included the day of the weird white moths, bogged jeeps, ant-riddled camera traps, and encounters that can only be related over a cold Aussie beer.

Laura’s volunteer work for wildlife conservation was made possible by the Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development Program, an Australian Government initiative assigning young people to support sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region.

FREELAND’s staff wish Laura all the best in her future travels and hope she’ll come back to visit soon.

Organic mushroom farming is a great way for villages around Khao Yai to make a living, as an alternative to cutting trees or poaching wildlife from the park.

Last month, FREELAND brought in a group of experts from the Phra Dabos Foundation’s Mushroom Cultivation in Sufficiency Agriculture Program to help Kok Sa-ard Village, just north of Khao Yai, further increase productivity and markets for its small-scale mushroom growing enterprises, set up with FREELAND’s help.

21 villagers participated in the three-day training, which covered everything from the basics of mass mushroom pack preparation, through to natural preservation methods to create ready-to-eat snack products and extend the shelf-life of produce.

Trainers also explained how to recycle materials to eliminate waste; and provided advice on dealing with changes in climate, such as the current cold snap.

Boonlert Thaitatkul, the lead instructor from Phra Dabos with over 35 years experience in mushroom cultivation, provided villagers with design plans and supervised the first stages of construction of an improved model cultivation house.

As this new knowledge is shared, it is hoped that low-impact organic agriculture will become an even more attractive option for villages on the edges of Khao Yai, ensuring a more sustainable and harmonious relationship with the forest.

FREELAND thanks the Phra Dabos Foundation for their time and expertise, and the Blue Moon Fund for making this training and the projects possible.

This week the biogas digester at Kok Sa-ard Village, just north of Khao Yai National Park, suffered a slight hiccup. A faulty seal was identified as the cause and quickly repaired.

The pilot project has successfully reduced villagers’ need to purchase gas for cooking or cut firewood from the forest. Pure liquid and solid fertilizer by-products are also being used on the community’s farms.

The benefits of free and sustainable energy have prompted Kok Sa-ard to plan construction of a second digester. FREELAND’s sustainable biogas pilot may also be expanded to another village, south of the park.

This pilot project was made possible with support from the Blue Moon Fund.

More than 1,000 local students kept FREELAND’s Khao Yai Education Outreach Team busy between July and September.

With the help of a teaching kit donated by the Point Defiance Zoo, groups of students learned about the biology and behaviour of big cats, such as clouded leopards and tigers. The importance of wildlife and habitat conservation was emphasized through songs and games.

For those who couldn’t trade their classroom for the expansive forests of Khao Yai, FREELAND’s Mobile Education Unit was also on the road.

FREELAND thanks Point Defiance Zoo for helping to educate the next generation of Thai nature lovers.

Forbes has named Khao Yai among the Top Spots For Southeast Asian Ecotourism.

Khao Yai was featured in the top ten picks not just for it’s World Heritage listed forests and amazing biodiversity, but also as a place to learn about “regional ecology and conservation efforts.”

FREELAND’s community outreach work in villages around the park was noted as a highlight for eco conscious travellers wanting to see and learn about forest conservation in action.

FREELAND is guiding sustainable development projects in several villages that border Khao Yai, to help former poachers become forest protectors.

Every year, park rangers make a pledge to the spirits of Khao Yai at a sacred ceremony in the forest. They promise not to hunt, kill or consume wild animals, and to protect the park from those that would.

Rangers also ask the spirits of Khao Yai to protect them from danger while on patrol. If any ranger was to break their promise to the spirits, it is said they will be cursed with a tragedy within 5-10 days that could also hurt others on the same patrol.

The spirits of Khao Yai are believed to have a connection with a community that settled in Dong Phayayen – Khao Yai and lived in harmony with the forest a long time ago.

FREELAND, which also trains Khao Yai’s rangers, is working with the village communities that live around the park today to help them develop a more sustainable relationship with the forest and provide real alternatives to poaching from the park.

Kuman killed them all. You name it, tigers, wild boars, gibbons, or elephants. While he was hunting in Khao Yai, he would also carve out selected parts of aloe wood trees – valuable aromatic resin wood used to make perfume and incense. The animals and aloe wood Kuman took from the park are protected species, but that didn’t deter him. His story is an environmentalist’s nightmare, and he was not alone.

Thousands of villagers like Kuman, in more than a hundred communities around Khao Yai, are still hunting and poaching illegally in the park. Often enough, the reason is poverty. As a poacher, Kuman could make a month’s salary in a single day if he caught a tiger, or earn easy money selling aloe wood.

The terrible impact of poaching on Khao Yai’s biodiversity has quickly become apparent. Few tigers survive in the park and other species are already extinct, such as Schomburgk’s Deer – Khao Yai’s emblem. The dwindling number of animals has forced poachers to cut more and more aloe wood from the park. Distilling factories have sprung up around Khao Yai to process the wood into oil, destined for the Middle East and other parts of the world. If nothing is done, it’s estimated that there might not be an aloe wood tree left in the forest within a decade.

FREELAND’s approach to protecting Khao Yai doesn’t ignore the human side to this story. While supporting rangers in their patrolling work, FREELAND’s Community Outreach Team is helping villagers develop a more sustainable relationship with the forest.

With this support, Kuman is now heading up an organic communal farm in his village, instead of a poaching gang. Producing fish, mushrooms and other vegetables for sale at local markets, the farm is self-reliant and profitable. It supports 17 families who would have otherwise relied on poaching. Kuman not only halted his village’s reliance on poaching, but has become a trainer in sustainable farming and speaker against poaching.