I filmed this in southern part of Nepal while visiting an Elephant breeding center. In this area unfortunately elephant riding is a touristic attraction for safaris since this is the safest way to enter the jungle. 

In my experience the mahouts were treating the elephants very well and yet I don’t feel the need to ride on such a beautiful creature and I don’t understand why humans think we have to dominate all the wild animals. It makes no sense to me. 

However neither do I want to judge over the locals who offer elephant riding because this all was raised by the demand of tourists. Should this stop? In my opinion yes, but in the same way there are entire families who depend on the income of their elephants. It’s a very tricky situation and the only way to create some sort of balance is to create alternative income for them so all the elephants could be finally released. How? Well, we are creative enough to send people to the moon, why shouldn’t we use the same creativity to entertain ourselves with other ways except on the back of wild animals.

Speech by:

Acharya Shree Yogeesh

Film by:

www.tolisart.com