A: No. Blanket bans and boycotts may seem ethically appealing from afar, but their real-world consequences—especially in Southeast Asia—can be devastating for elephants, mahouts, and local communities alike.
This question often emerges from well-intentioned concern, especially among tourists and activists responding to viral images or exposés. But beneath the surface lies a deeper problem: a tendency to judge complex human–elephant relationships through Western-centric ideals of “purity,” “freedom,” and “non-contact.” These ideals often overlook the lived realities of elephant care, the economic conditions of rural Southeast Asia, and the deep cultural ties between people and elephants.
Let’s look at this question through three ethical frameworks:
1. Animal Welfare: Focus on Conditions, Not Categories
From an animal welfare perspective, the key concern is not whether elephants are interacting with humans, but under what conditions those interactions take place.
Banning all contact overlooks the reality that responsibly managed interactions can contribute to the elephants’ physical and mental wellbeing, while also financing their care. Research (e.g. Bansiddhi et al., 2019; Suter et al., 2014) shows that when elephants receive regular activity, stimulation, and proper nutrition, they live longer, healthier lives.
Eliminating tourism income without providing sustainable alternatives can lead to far worse outcomes:
- Return to logging (legal or illegal), with harder labor and fewer welfare safeguards
- Sale to private zoos or circuses abroad, further eroding local populations
- Poaching or slaughter for the illegal wildlife trade
Welfare-based ethics emphasize pragmatic reform, not moral panic. Rather than boycott camps, tourists and tour operators should support those working to meet high welfare standards, and help build the economic base for continued improvement.
2. Animal Rights: Rejecting All Use as Exploitation
From an animal rights standpoint, all forms of elephant tourism—including interaction—are seen as inherently exploitative. The emphasis is not on how elephants are treated, but whether they are being used for human ends at all.
Boycotts and bans are therefore seen as necessary tools to dismantle systems of commodification and control. Any interaction is considered a breach of animal autonomy—even if the elephant shows no signs of distress.
But this perspective, when universalized, often fails to distinguish between degrees of harm, and can erase key differences in how elephants are managed across cultures. It also promotes a one-size-fits-all ethical framework, exported from the West, that may be incompatible with local livelihoods, values, and multispecies relationships.
Ultimately, this approach seeks purity in separation—but such separation is not always possible or desirable, especially in places like Laos where elephants and humans have long shared social space.
3. Laotian Mahouts: Co-Existence, Not Abandonment
From the perspective of Laotian mahouts and local elephant owners, elephants are not just animals—they are co-inhabitants of the village, workers, kin, and cultural beings.
Banning all interactions undermines the centuries-old practices of elephant care based on close daily engagement, embodied knowledge, and relational labor. It risks making mahouts invisible, and worse, irrelevant in shaping conservation futures.
When external campaigns impose bans or label all human–elephant interaction as “abuse,” they often do so without consulting those who live with and care for elephants every day. This not only delegitimizes traditional knowledge but may force mahouts into untenable economic decisions: return elephants to logging, sell them abroad, or abandon them altogether.
In Laos, where reproductive rates are low and the captive population is aging, such outcomes could hasten the functional extinction of elephants in the country.
A Convivial Alternative: Reform Through Partnership
At Manifa Elephant Camp, and in other emerging ethical models, we advocate for convivial conservation—a vision that sees elephants and people as interdependent partners, not as problems to be separated.
This means:
- Improving welfare through training, veterinary care, and appropriate activity
- Sustaining livelihoods of mahouts and local communities, so that they can care for elephants without resorting to harmful alternatives
- Educating tourists to choose camps that prioritize quality of life over passive spectacle
- Resisting ethical imperialism, where external actors dictate terms without listening to those on the ground
Conclusion: Bans Are Not the Answer
Boycotting all elephant interactions may satisfy a certain moral narrative—but it ignores the realities on the ground, and risks causing the very suffering it hopes to prevent.
Instead of asking, “Should we ban interaction?” we should be asking:
- How can we make interactions better—for elephants, for mahouts, and for the broader ecosystem?
- How can tourists, NGOs, scientists, and communities collaborate on long-term solutions?
- Whose values are shaping the debate—and who gets left out when we follow them blindly?
Ethical tourism doesn’t mean walking away. It means walking forward—together, with open eyes and deeper understanding.
