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What have elephants got to do with football and martial arts?  Well more than you might think!

Thailand has long been a hot spot for the illegal ivory trade, which is why the Let Elephants Be Elephants team targeted this country for the next phase of our campaign.  We have seen some stronger measures in Thailand in the last year, including changes to the legislation around ivory and a public ivory stockpile destruction by the government, but there is still much to be done to raise awareness of the issue in Thailand.

Let Elephants Be Elephants is very proud to be a partner in WildAid‘s new campaign to stop ivory trade in Thailand – Be Ivory Free.  The Thai soccer team, the ‘war elephants’, along with Thai Hollywood martial arts star Tony Jaa, are the ambassadors for this campaign locally, encouraging people all across the country to say no to ivory.  The core message is that success is achieved through hard work, not by wearing ivory from poached elephants.  Take a look at the advertisements going out this week below.

You can do your part to spread the word by going to Let Elephants Be Elephants’ Facebook site and sharing the advertisements far and wide across your social networks.  If you have connections in Thailand, please send these messages directly to them.  And of course, as always, never buy ivory when you are visiting Thailand or any other country.  Let’s keep up the momentum and make sure everyone knows that it’s not cool to wear ivory!

It’s been a while coming, but much goes on behind the scenes when it comes to developing awareness programs for species like elephants and rhinos in Asia.  Those of you who know me personally know that the awareness raising never stops when it comes to elephants and the ivory trade.  Last week, my conservation safari group of Singaporeans, British and Aussies talked at length about conservation and what still needs to be done while deep in the desert dunes of the Skeleton Coast, inspired by the arid-adapted wildlife of Namibia and those magnificent desert-dwelling elephants.  Next week I’ll be in Brisbane talking to about 200 Queensland business women at the Australian Women in Leadership symposium about what we can learn from elephants about leadership (and of course, how we can help the elephants too).  Even though we’ve made good headway lately, we can’t afford to lose momentum and we need you to keep spreading the word too.

I’ve spent much time thinking about and talking to others in the know about how to have the most meaningful impact for this cause in the last year.  Sometimes it’s more impactful to team up with other organisations that are getting results than to go it alone.  I’m very excited to say that the Let Elephants Be Elephants campaign (LEBE) is now teaming up with global wildlife trade organisation WildAid and the Thai soccer team, known as the ‘War Elephants’, to raise awareness of the illegal ivory trade in Thailand.

Wild Aid ambassador and martial arts TV star Tony Jaa is making a stand to stop the illegal ivory trade as part of the broader campaign that LEBE is supporting

If you’ve signed the pledge to say no to ivory at the LEBE website, you will have received our latest newsletter today announcing this new partnership.  Just in case you missed it, here it is below as well.  The ads will be released in the coming months and spread across Thailand, so please help us spread the word by sharing our posts on the campaign in your social media networks.

LEBE X WildAid joining forces to stop ivory trade in Thailand May 2016   We’ve been a little quiet lately, but that’s because over the past year we’ve been consolidating our efforts raising awareness of the ivory trade to date in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia, and working on a strategic approach to keep spreading the word across South East Asia with key partners in Thailand. The Thai government has made some significant strides to get on top of the illegal ivory market in the past year, including destroying over 2 tonnes of ivory last August and taking some steps to legislate against the illegal trade. But Thailand’s ivory market remains one of the largest in the world and there is still a great need to make people aware and change behaviour around buying ivory, both local Thai and visiting Chinese. Africa’s elephants are still in crisis. The situation remains particularly dire in west and central Africa, and in countries like Tanzania, which once boasted huge populations, but has lost 60% of its elephants in the last 5 years. The significance of the enormous losses in elephant lives was just highlighted in Kenya’s burning of 105 tonnes of stockpiled ivory, as well as its stockpile of rhino horn, representing about 6500 elephant lives (and 450 rhino lives). The demand must stop. It’s heart breaking to think of so many of these incredible giants reduced to ash in a funeral pyre directly resulting from human greed and corruption.

WildAid Telegraph UK

On the back of this bold statement by Kenya, we are very pleased to announce that this year LEBE is partnering with WildAid in a ground breaking ivory awareness campaign in Thailand. Building on WildAid’s highly successful ivory campaign in China and Hong Kong, our joint Thai campaign will increase awareness among the Thai public about the elephant poaching crisis in Africa and the link to ivory products sold in Thailand, as well as persuading Chinese tourists not to buy ivory. Joining Thai martial arts actor Tony Jaa (Ong Bak series, Furius 7, Skin Trade), who is already an ambassador for the Thai ivory campaign, is the Thai national soccer team, named ‘Chang Seuk’ (War Elephants).The line up encouraging the public to get behind this cause includes Coach Zico, one of Thailand’s all time greatest soccer players, now leading the team towards a berth in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Jay Chanathip, known as ‘Messi Jay’, named best player of the 2014 ASEAN Football Federation tournament. The campaign will launch in the coming months, and we’ll be asking you to get on board and help us continue spreading the word to stop people buying ivory!Nadya, Tammie & the LEBE team

Advertising works.  We might not like it, but when it’s done well, it does.  And when it comes to stopping people buying ivory, it seems that some organisations are seeing signs of  success in reducing demand in Asia simply by letting people know that buying ivory is directly linked to the killing of elephants.  This is just the sort of hopeful story that I like to share, so read on!

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Some days I feel like I’m leading a double life.  One second a conservationist in the wild, the next one a mother wiping noses.  One weekend in Bangkok’s crazy markets surrounded by ivory jewellery, the next one headed for Africa where elephants and rhinos are on the receiving end of the poachers…   (more…)