Economic Value of Conservation: The Case of the Asian Elephant

Abstract

The survival of both Asian and African elephants has become increasingly critical. However, in many respects, the survival of the Asian elephant is more precarious than that of the African elephant. Throughout its range, the populations of Asian elephants have declined in recent decades while aggravating the conflict with human interests. This article examines the historical evidence about the abundance and geographical distribution of the Asian Elephant, and then discusses the economic, social and institutional dilemmas which are associated with conservation of elephants and mitigation of human-elephant conflict in Asia. The point is then highlighted and illustrated that new thinking about economic value strengthens the social case for the conserving the remaining populations of Asian elephants.

Protected area complexes: a new approach to connectivity in Thailand

“…Their migration routes now take them through plantations or across roads, sometimes leading to fatal accidents for both elephants and people. This conflict also has economic implications, given the importance of elephants for their cultural roles, their contributions to tourism, their role in maintaining some ecosystem functions in forests (Bandara, 2004), and the importance of maintaining the source of elephants for captive use in forestry or tourism (Tipprasert, 2002). However, new approaches to addressing this conflict are being developed throughout the distribution range of Asian elephants (Woodroffe et al, 2005;Perera, 2009), especially through developing corridors such as those in EFCOM and combining protected areas into complexes that are sufficiently large to provide adequate habitat to elephants, as in WEFCOM (Suksawang & Temchai, 2014).…”