There are approximately 560 working elephants in Laos, employed mainly in the timber industry. The dense jungles of Laos mean they are guaranteed regular work and due to the poor state of roads, particularly in the rainy season, they are also valuable as a means of transport. In rural villages, elephants are involved in a great variety of tasks, such as house construction, carrying rice at harvest time and pulling tree stumps out of fields.
The tourism sector is growing fast in Laos and may, in the future, be another source of income for Lao mahouts and their families. Lao mahouts possess a great wealth of ancestral knowledge that covers traditional medicine and plant-lore, husbandry, and training. Throughout Asia and in Laos especially, elephants are considered sacred. They have served mankind in the forest and have been given an integral role in Buddhist and animist beliefs.
If the species were to become extinct, a fundamental part of the area's cultural heritage would also be lost. While working elephants retain their traditional role in Laos and do not suffer the under-employment affecting their cousins in Thailand, their situation is showing signs of deterioration. Traditional knowledge of how to care for the animals is slowly disappearing, without as yet being replaced by modern veterinary techniques.
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