Elephant Conservation (bilateral camp)

Currently the conflict between elephants and human are rising because they have less area to live. Elephants are being squeezed into smaller area, since the local farmer plant the crops and elephants like to destroy and eat them. As a result, the elephants frequently raid and destroy the crops which will cause a conflict between human and elephant. Due to this reason, local government and organization which concerns about the wild life are working together to save or conserve the elephants and reduce the conflict.
This project aiming to assist local governmental office named Way Kambas National Park which located in Elephant Conservation Centre to conserve the sanctuary.
Our project IS NOT a safari place, but it is mostly as a place for elephant conservation which facing problem of critical decreasing population and threats due to illegal lodging which endanger their life.
The PKG is located inside and managed by the Balai Taman Nasional Way Kambas / BTNWK (Way Kambas National Park) covering round 1.300 square kilometers in Lampung Province, Southern Sumatera Island. The park consists of swamp forest and lowland rain forest. There are around 60 elephants with 60 mahouts for each (1 mahout responsible for 1 elephant). All of the elephants in the PKG are chained when they were in the stall during the night. The purpose of putting chain in one of their legs is for monitoring, handle the elephants when they are stress, to distinguish between the PKG’s elephants and the wild one. The mahout using special tool called “gancu” (little iron hammer with curve point) to handle the elephant. The way how to use the gancu is by touching gently behind the elephant’s ear and sometimes on its head.
Work: Volunteer will help local mahout (a person who takes care and train an elephant) daily to take care the elephant starting from bathing/showering, feeding, health checking and grassing the elephant. One local mahout will be accompanied by one volunteer in doing his daily job.
Study theme: The volunteers could learn about the animal’s life and how local people take care of and handle the conservation.
The basic timetable on Dejavato’s camps is about 30-35 hours of work per week, generally from Monday to Friday, but the necessities of the project can bring the volunteers to work some more (rarely less).