Thai Elephants Conservation Centre Khao Yai

The last activity for Amnuay Silpa School Bangkok was to make paper out of Elephant dung at the Thai Elephants Conservation Centre Khao Yai which is not far from the school and on the way towards Khao Yai National Park. Elephant dung paper was previously made by the conservation centre to sell to the visitors and locals to raise money toward conserving the elephants. Tony thought it would be an idea for the centre to address this product and use it for the students to learn the process. This also gave the students a chance to learn about the elephants and the conservation project. The process is not that much different from other handmade paper making techniques. As the elephant dung is not as digested as some other animals poo, the fibres are used to make the paper. 

The students were separated into groups to do various stages of making the paper as this can be a lengthly process. A group were selected to collect the elephant dung and to break them down into smaller pieces to be be washed. Another group at the same time were asked to collect wood to boil the dung for several hours. (Tony had done a batch earlier for the another group to start the paper making stage). Another group had then had to squeeze the fibres into balls of any moisture and to be put into a bath for the paper to be made on wooden frames with some metal mesh. A couple of students were selected to make extra frames for more paper to be made. As this was still a learning curve for both Tony and the student we were not able to see the final product as we have been told that it would take several days for the paper to dry. Once they are dried they would be sent to Bangkok to the students. 
This paper would not be suitable for writing on but having done this as a trial we thought that it would be an idea to find some other way to break the fibres down to a finer state and to have some rollers for the paper to be even when it was made. Hopefully the whole process can be improved however the students learnt a lot from working together 
through all of the processes. 


We also received a presentation from the Thai Elephant Conservation representatives covering their work as whole to protect the Thai elephants and of all elephants in South East Asia from the critical situation of their fast decline of their population. Fortunately there are still some elephants left out in the wild in the National Park however if the elephants are rescued from tourist keepers that train elephants for tourism which you find that they are over worked, they are rescued to be domesticated so they can never be released back into the wild again. However they are used for the conservation breeding programme but sadly they are too running out of families to breed without running into breeding with the same families. This is why the work at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre and at any conservation programme in any part of the work is so important. As funny as it is that the visiting groups that come to St Stephens International School end up making paper out of elephant the importance behind this work is also affective to raise awareness of keeping these beautiful majestic animals from going into extinction. I found out through many discussions of the project that many locals in Thailand are still not aware how critical it has become through the ridiculous reason of ivory and medicine. I was standing before the two elephants at the conservation centre and I could not understand why anyone would want to kill such an amazing animal. There are not enough reasons in the world for me to understand why this intolerable act is an acceptable choice for some people.

I put a little video together of the students from Amnuay Silpa School Bangkok working together through the processes of making paper out of elephant dung.