381 Elephants, Tigers and Responsible Animal Tourism

Various statistics suggest that more than half of travellers want to see animals when they travel: that's why we keep returning to the topic of animal tourism and how we can do this in ways that both keep humans interested in caring for animals but without doing too much harm - and while bearing in mind that for many communities, animal tourism can be a significant part of their economy. To sum up: it's tricky!

In this episode I get a bunch of different perspectives. I start with Eryn Gordon, a travel writer who visited Thailand and had her first encounter there with an animal sanctuary that was ethical on paper but made her question this when she was there in person - something that many tourists experience.

Next, I speak with safari guide Suyash Keshari, who has many years of experience working in tourism with tigers in India (and other animals around the world), and discusses the difficult balance of tourist behaviour that does and doesn't impact animals in ways that actually change their lives.

Finally, John Roberts takes us back a couple of decades to describe some of what was happening when the world first started to consider whether it was okay or not to train and tame elephants for tourism purposes, and some of the tricky elements of this in the Thai context in particular. 

Links:

• Eryn Gordon’s website Earth to Editorial - https://earthtoeditorial.com/ 
• Eryn's TEDx Talk on “What it means to be a good traveler” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WQYSdm-5ps 
• Suyash Keshari, Ameliya Safaris - https://ameliyasafaris.com/  
• John Roberts, Group Director of Sustainability and Conservation, Minor Hotels -https://www.minorhotels.com/ 
• Whither Captive Elephants? by Daniel Stiles - https://medium.com/@danielstiles/whither-captive-elephants-f4e70a36aff8 

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