treks.
Vientiane Times
Monday January 5, 2015
Elephants to make 630km trek from Xayaboury to Luang Prabang
Times Reporters
The government and provincial authorities from Xayaboury and Luang Prabang together with the Elephant Conservation Centre plan to organise an elephant caravan to mark the 20th anniversary of Luang Prabang’s World Heritage status in December. Based on the success of other elephant events (the elephant caravan in 2010 and the elephant festivals held from 2007-2012), the caravan will journey 630km from Paklai district in Xayaboury province to Luang Prabang province. The outward and return legs of the trek itself will take place from November 30 to December 17, while an elephant parade and performances will take place in Luang Prabang from December 7-10 to celebrate the town’s World Heritage status (1995-2015), according to the Elephant Conservation Centre . The centre is now looking for partners from the private and public sectors to participate in this event. The elephant caravan and associated shows promise to be one of the largest cultural events in Laos this year. The project combines an elephant trek across rural and urban Laos with educational and conservation activities for village children. It concludes in an artistic and cultural festival celebrating Luang Prabang’s 20 years as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The caravan and the cultural festival will be organised by the provinces of Luang Prabang and Xayaboury, in partnership with the Elephant Conservation Centre, with the support of the French NGO ‘Des Eléphants et des Hommes’ and the Laobased ‘Community Learning
International’. The aim of the project is to raise public awareness, both in Laos and internationally, about the threats to the Asian elephant and to the rainforest, its natural environment. There are only 900 elephants left in Laos, a country once known as the ‘Land of a Million Elephants’. If the current trend continues the elephant, the earth’s largest land mammal, will completely disappear from Lao forests within the next 50 years. The elephants will march across the length of Xayaboury province, an area known as the cradle of ‘Lao elephant culture’. The province shelters 75 percent of the current national elephant population. The march symbolises a call for help from Lao elephants to the citizens and governing bodies of Laos. The caravan will be accompanied by theatrical and musical performers as well as educational staff, making it a kind of multi-cultural roadshow. As the caravan stops in each village, there will be daily public performances to engage local residents and educate children about elephant conservation. The story will revolve around the elephant, as an ambassador of biodiversity and cultural diversity, of the cultural heritage of Laos and the biological heritage of humanity. Because the elephant is both an endangered ‘keystone’ species in its ecosystem and a revered living emblem of the Lao nation, the Elephant Conservation Centre is using this event to pay tribute to the elephant and promote Laos as an environmentally friendly tourist destination. The arrival of the elephants
Border guards in Vietnam’s Nghe An province recently arrested a man suspected of trafficking 6.6 kilogrammes of heroin from Laos into Vietnam, Vietnamese local media reported last week. Ha Ba Cu, a 23-year-old Nghe An native, was arrested at the border between the two countries, according to the Thanhnien News published by Vietnam’s Youth Association. Cu said he moved to Laos’ Borikhamxay province in 2011 and had smuggled heroin to Vietnam several times since then. Anti-drug chief with the Nghe An Border Guards, Colonel Nguyen Truong Thi, was quoted as saying that his team had followed Cu for “many” months before the arrest, which was part of a “complicated” operation. The border guards were cooperating with the police to investigate further, Col. Thi said. Vietnam has some of the world’s toughest drug laws. Those convicted of producing or selling 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics face the death penalty. Smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilogrammes of methamphetamine
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Elephants march across Laos during past treks. --File photo
in villages in Xayaboury and Luang Prabang provinces is an opportunity to send an educational message to young people and their parents. At each step, the team will conduct outreach activities in the community and provide illustrated books to schoolchildren. Based on the performances of their travelling theatre and making use of educational materials created for the occasion, the team will work with educational institutions in villages to deliver key messages about environmental protection and elephant conservation. In Luang Prabang, the caravan will join the celebrations for the World Heritage anniversary. Twenty elephants will enter a majestic procession into the ancient city amidst the varied performances of Lao and international artists. A light, fire and sound performance, uniquely designed to celebrate the city’s cultural landmarks and the elephant procession, will mark the anniversary of the cultural capital of Laos. Xayaboury is home to the largest Asian elephant
Vietnam police arrest heroin trafficker from Laos Times Reporters
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is also punishable by death. But heroin smuggling from Laos has become more rampant of late, with many people arrested and sentenced in court every year. Laos has struggled to reduce the area used to cultivate opium poppies, the source of heroin. Land used for cultivating poppies in Laos nearly doubled from 2013 to 2014, according to the Southeast Asia Opium Survey 2014, issued last month by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which focuses on the production of opium in Laos and Myanmar. Yields per hectare also rose dramatically, from 6kg to 14.7kg. Combined, Laos and Myanmar are home to an estimated 64,000 hectares of poppy farms, which last year produced a combined 762 tonnes of opium. Officials have said the price of dried opium has increased dramatically from between US$200 and US$300 per kilogramme in 2000 and is now selling for between US$1,500 and US$2,000 per kg. In Laos, international organisations have expressed concern about the destruction of forests in areas where poppy farmers fell trees to grow the illicit crop.
population in Laos, making the province a key reservoir for this endangered species. Luang Prabang is the former royal capital of the ‘Land of a Million Elephants’. As a living icon with important symbolic connotations and historical associations for many Asian cultures, the elephant is an animal dear to the hearts of all people in Laos and the region. Unfortunately, it is no exaggeration to say that the elephant, one of the defining components of Asian heritage, is today under threat. Luang Prabang province, Xayaboury province, the Lao World Heritage Department and the Elephant Conservation Centre with their cultural approach to conservation, wish to play a key role in raising regional and international awareness of the need to protect the Asian elephant, a vital cultural and biological heritage of Laos. They will also promote cultural exchange and intercultural dialogue, through a shared commitment to ensure a happy future for the Asian elephant which has played such an important role in all the
region’s cultures throughout history. The Elephant Conservation Centre has the only elephant hospital and nursery in Laos. It is committed to ensuring the health, wellbeing and perpetuation of endangered elephant populations. Sebastien Duffillot is the co-founder of ElefantAsia, the
Elephant Conservation Centre and the Elephant Festival in Laos and Regional Programme Manager for Southeast Asia for “Des Eléphants et des Hommes”. In 2002, Sebastien travelled 1.300 km with four elephants between Champassak and Luang Prabang provinces in Laos’ first ever Elephant Caravan.
Deputy minister monitors progress of nutrition project Times Reporters
Senior officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry recently toured smallholdings in the southern provinces to monitor the progress of the Southern Laos Food and Nutrition Security and Market Linkage programme (FNML). The project is supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and is being implemented in five districts of Xekong, Saravan and Attapeu provinces. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Dr Pheth Phomphithak was accompanied on his visit on December 26 by local government officials. Dr Pheth reviewed the progress of the project in the randomly selected village of Phouhom in Phouvong district, Attapeu province, where he met villagers and saw how the project was improving nutrition in the community. Dr Pheth visited some of the home vegetable gardens and talked with a women’s group to learn about the difficulties they face in making a living. He suggested lucrative ways in which they might improve their situation. The FNML project aims to help villagers to establish vegetable gardens so they have a sustainable food source and better nutrition, as well as a source of income. The goals of the project are a diversified food growing programme throughout the year, reduction of malnutrition in children under five, and increasing income and ownership of
A delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry visits a vegetable garden in the south.
household assets. The villagers were very happy to receive a visit from the deputy minister. They expressed their gratitude by giving their views on how the project was helping them to improve their nutrition and food resources. The village head said the villagers recognised the need for better nutrition and food security in order to improve the lives of their families and future generations. One local resident, Ms Soukmai, told Dr Pheth she was happy that nutrition was a priority of the FNML programme and that she and other people from her village were proud to
be part of the planning process. The programme had resulted in development and positive results in a short period of time. The villagers were pleased about the FNML activities and said they would be a proactive part of the project’s future plans. They also said they would try to learn the new methods shown them and use them in their own households to good advantage. Dr Pheth said he would visit the villagers again if required and would personally monitor the project’s activities to make sure local people received the maximum benefit.