Our members had the pleasure of welcoming the Bring The Elephant Home Foundation (BTEH), visiting Rotarians and guests to our club lunch meeting on 25 November. President Brian started the meeting with an overview of our club’s recent and upcoming community service projects and events, and exchanged club banners with Roger and Carol from our Friendship Club, the Rotary Club of Aireborough in Yorkshire, England.
We are grateful for the collaborative support from their club as we have just completed another international joint-project where they helped us sponsor large sets of children’s books for the libraries of two underprivileged schools in the remote regions of Prachuap Khirikhan province.
The founder and director of BTEH, Dr. Antoinette van de Water is a Dutch conservationist who presented the research and development activities of the foundation along with Khun Kimmim, the country director in Thailand. They shared how their community-driven approaches in Thailand, from fieldwork to science, are shaping new models of human–elephant coexistence.
In Thailand, their focus is on Kuiburi National Park, home to more than 300 wild elephants. Dr. Antoinette and her team study elephant behavior and collaborate with farmers and rangers to create practical, nature-based solutions including community engagement, planting elephant-friendly crops, and using beehive fences to reduce human-elephant conflicts. Their flagship initiative is the Tom Yum Project, where farmers grow lemongrass, galangal, and chili peppers, the crops that elephants avoid, and turn them into sustainable, elephant-friendly products. They also have an “Adopt An Elephant” program to help support their ongoing research activities.
The meeting attendees enjoyed the buffet lunch with fellowship and Rotarian Roman was the lucky winner of the bottle of wine for the day.
About the BTEH Foundation
About the BTEH Foundation
BTEH is a Dutch, Thai, and South African NGO that has spent over 20 years working in Asia and Africa to transform human–elephant conflict into coexistence. For more information, visit www.bteh.org
See more pictures in the photo album here