In 2018, Yok Don National Park in Vietnam received international attention for the country's first ethical model for elephants in tourism activitiesFUF's correspondent Tova Ideland spoke with Hue Nguyen from Animals Asia about how the new model has changed tourism and life in and around Yok Don - for both elephants and people.
“Our project works for sustainable transitions from elephant riding to ethical elephant experiences. It is about protecting elephants already living in captivity,” says Hue Nguyen, who works as an education coordinator for the animal welfare organization Animals Asia.
Vietnam's second largest national park, Yok Don, spreads across Dak Lak province in the central highlands, far from the most popular destinations in the country's vital tourism sector. The province is also home to Vietnam's largest elephant population, which attracts visitors.
Elephant riding has long been an important, but criticized, source of income in Dak Lak. Now that is changing. In 2018, Yok Don Park introduced a new tourism model in partnership with the animal protection organization Animals Asia. It involves buying elephants from riding tourism and letting them roam freely in the park. No one rides them anymore – tourists watch them from a distance.
Since the 1990s, it has been forbidden to capture elephants in Vietnam, but the existing domesticated population is expected to live for several more decades. After a life among humans, the elephants in Yok Don require continued supervision by mahouts – elephant handlers – who now also guide tourists in the park.
According to Hue has the dismantling of elephant riding provided new livelihood opportunities:
“It’s about supporting the local community in the transition to an alternative, elephant-friendly model that also takes into account the cultural context – a long and close relationship between humans and elephants. We employ locals as mahouts and develop tourist activities. The new model also attracts new visitors, which has paved the way for other tourist services,” says Hue.
The new approach is popular with tourists and competes with riding operations. The operator that owns the most elephants in the district after Yok Don has also stopped elephant riding for visitors since 2023.
Animals Asia is providing financial compensation to former owners, but according to Hue there are more reasons than pesome more to sell his elephant to Yok Don:
– Previous owners saw that their elephant could have a better life within our project. Nowadays, it is also possible to have an income that is not dependent on equestrian tourism. This increases openness and willingness to hand over an elephant to the project.
Seeing how elephant welfare improves in the wild can also contribute to political interest in conservation and environmental issues, believes Hue, who works to strengthen the species' position in society. I ask her about the challenges of ecotourism and for elephants in Vietnam.
“Their forests are getting smaller and smaller. Sometimes it leads to conflict between elephants and people,” she says.
The size of the park reduces the risk of this happening. Men Hue tells us that the elephants in addition, it is placed deep into the forest, far from cultivated land.
She also highlights that the status of a national park is important for sustainable ecotourism that protects the environment, wildlife and the ethnic minority groups living in the park's buffer zone. The number of visitors is still relatively low compared to the most visited parts of Vietnam, making it easier to operate activities that do not leave a large footprint on nature.
The project hopes that the new model will spill over to other elephant and animal operations in Vietnam. Animals Asia is therefore currently working to introduce it to surrounding districts. Until next year They hope to completely phase out elephant riding in whole Dak Lak Province.
More about the project
Animals Asia Foundation is an international animal welfare organization headquartered in Hong Kong. Founded in 1998, the organization runs animal welfare initiatives in several countries in Asia.
Today, there are 35 captive elephants left in Dak Lak province, of which 24 live in Buon Don district, where the project is based. Animals Asia has so far purchased eleven elephants. They also provide advice to other elephant operations in the district, where the second largest operator has stopped elephant rides for tourists since 2023. The operation in Yok Don remains the only observation-based and officially non-exploitative model according to Animal Asia's standards.
The wild elephant population in Vietnam
As elephants’ habitat shrinks, largely due to human environmental impact, the risk of them trampling over important agricultural land also increases. This in turn increases the risk of conflict with humans. Living side by side is not always easy, but it highlights the elephant’s very vulnerable situation. In 1980, the number of wild elephants in Vietnam was estimated at around 2 – today there are fewer than 000.
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