Declining prospects for Thailand’s elephants
Long revered for their intelligence and sensitivity, elephants are Thailand’s national animal. Elephant Day is celebrated on March 13. A white elephant appeared on the country’s flag until 1917. The animals once paraded members of the royal family, served as super-weapons in Southeast Asian armies and worked in the forests, hauling logs for the Thai lumber trade. But encroaching civilization and a 1989 ban on logging sent the pachyderm population into a tailspin. From about 100,000 at the turn of the 20th century, its numbers have steadily dwindled to a meagre head count, as of last June, of 3,456 domesticated animals and another 1,000 or so in the wild. These latter face an increasingly bleak future, hunted both by vengeful farmers whose crops they sometimes ruin and by ivory hunters who covet their tusks. Though about 300 elephants still live on the streets of Thai cities, many have found a way station at trekking camps. These camps are highly popular with tourists, but many are notorious among animal rights groups, which say that they are maltreating the creatures. Anantara, run by the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, appears to offer one of the better elephant programmes, promoting wildlife conservation and the preservation of rural life, and offering mahouts and their families a chance to earn a living wage. It also caters to high-end tourists and is therefore well funded. But elephants eat 10 percent of their body weight daily, so many camps that operate on the margin feel pressured to work their pachyderms hard to cover the cost of their upkeep. The best hope for Thailand’s elephants would be government backing for sanctuaries such as Elephant Nature Park and Elephant Haven, two private, nonprofit sanctuaries near the Burmese border that were established by animal rights activist Sangduen “Lek” Chailert to allow elephants to live in a protected natural setting. A system of national parks could provide Thailand and its tourist industry another valuable revenue stream. But the biggest payoff would be helping replenish the once robust population of Asian elephants, now only about one-tenth the size of Africa’s (which numbers between 470,000 and 690,000, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources). (LAT-WP)

Indians world’s greenest consumers; Americans worst
Consumers in India care the most for the environment in terms of their day-to-day behaviour with those in the US coming at the bottom, according to a study of 14 countries conducted by the National Geographic Society and the international polling firm GlobeScan. “This first-of-its-kind study reveals surprising differences between consumers in developed and developing countries in terms of environmentally friendly actions,” NatGeo said. The survey was conducted online earlier this year among 14,000 consumers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain and the United States. Indian and Brazilian consumers topped the 14-country index, and have the highest Greendex score for environmentally sustainable consumption at 60 points each, because of their relatively lower environmental impact from housing and above-average performance on transportation and food. They are followed by consumers in China (56.1), Mexico (54.3), Hungary (53.2) and Russia (52.4). Among consumers in wealthy countries, those in Great Britain, Germany and Australia each have a Greendex score of 50.2, those in Spain register a score of 50.0 and Japanese respondents, 49.1. The US consumers have the lowest Greendex score at 44.9. The other lowest-scoring consumers are Canadians with 48.5 and the French with 48.7. People in developing countries are more likely to live in smaller residences, prefer green products and own relatively few appliances or expensive electronic devices, walk, cycle, or use public transportation, and choose to live close to their most common destination. By contrast, consumers in developed countries, have larger homes and are more likely to have air-conditioning, they generally own more cars, drive alone most frequently rather than using public transport. (PTI)

Academic says gadgets threaten Internet’s future
The rise of gadgets like the iPhone, Blackberry and Xbox threatens to unravel the decades of innovation that helped to build the Internet, a leading academic has warned in a new book. Professor Jonathan Zittrain says the latest must-have devices are sealed, “sterile” boxes that stifle creativity and turn consumers into passive users of technology. Unlike home computers, new Internet-enabled gadgets don’t lend themselves to the sort of tinkering and collaboration that leads to technological advances, he says. The mix of gadgets, over-regulation and Internet security fears could destroy the old system where mainstream technology could be “influenced, even revolutionized, out of left field”. Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, contrasts one of the first mass-produced home computers, the Apple II from the 1970s, with Apple’s latest gadget, the iPhone. He says the iPhone is typical of what he calls “tethered appliances”. “They are appliances in that they are easy to use, while not easy to tinker with,” he writes. “They are tethered because it is easy for their vendors to change them from afar, long after the devices have left warehouses and showrooms.” (Reuters)

editor@expressindia.com

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