Day 2 [5 Jan]

Today, we still spent the morning at the Elephant Nature Park. My sub-group was especially fortunate to secure an interview with the amazing family of three who are the founders of an organization called the Blue Star of Hope that hopes to foster a sense of global understanding and compassion and to encourage youths to embrace cross-cultural similarities and differences.

It is not always easy to find people who are truly and sincerely passionate about what they are doing. Yet, speaking with Juelle Wilkins, the Executive Director and Christian Wilkins, the Development Director of the Blue Star of Hope, it is apparent that their project is one that they hold dear to themselves and one that they zealously devote themselves to. They were extremely willing to share their life experiences and to tell us all about poaching and ivory that they know of. When it came to questions that they do not truly have expertise in, they were quick to bring up other contacts that they can refer us to. I feel blessed and honestly fortunate to come across such helpful and warm people on this trip.

From my own reading, I have known that some people are not actively involved in causes to preserve the elephants because they feel that in terms of magnitude, their efforts would not amount to much. This is also why the objective of the Blue Star of Hope’s Power of One program really caught my eye – “Fostering the idea that one person can make a difference to a family, a village, a country and a world”. When I went on to ask them further about that notion, they shared that they believe the essence lies in the idea of “passing on” such that there is a ripple pond or spiderweb effect. A small act that is continuously being “passed on” can still effect a difference that is lasting and significant. To quote them directly, “even if you do not see it, you are making a difference”. Personally, I find their attitude towards work and towards meeting new people highly optimistic and motivating.  Even with ability and talent, I feel that it is only with the right values and mindsets that people will go on to do work that is most meaningful and inspiring. Additionally, I would think that being able to inspire others and inject hope are also qualities that a good leader should have. Henceforth, their attitudes are what I hope to aspire towards and eventually adopt.

While the time spent at ENP has been generally fruitful, it was still not entirely smooth-sailing, especially for my sub-group. Very often, most people we surveyed or interviewed knew more about elephant tourism than about poaching and ivory. This made me think back to how I felt when I first found out about my group’s topic. I remember having a mixture of conflicting feelings. Poaching and ivory is a topic that is less common and less well-known. While it posed a healthy challenge, it also made the gathering of information much harder. At certain points I even felt a little vexed because it would seem that our topic is more “difficult”. However, after the group discussion we had at night, I realized that a little change in perception changes how you feel about an issue entirely. For instance, elephant tourism and poaching and ivory are not actually separate topics but are highly interlinked. Due to elephant tourism, there is a larger domesticated elephant population which gives rise to the legal ivory trade. As it is hard to discern legal ivory (from Asian elephants in Thailand) from illegal ivory (from foreign imports), the presence of a legal ivory market provides a shelter for illegal ivory to be laundered into the market unknowingly. While one may say that elephant tourism drives the ivory trade, the converse is also possible. Sometimes, elephants are saved from having their tusks removed because tourists like to see big and magnificent tusks. In this case, due to a wish to cater to the tastes and preferences of tourists, elephant tourism can actually also impede the ivory trade. This made me understand the impact of taking different perspectives. Even when a topic may be inherently harder to secure information about, that fact can in itself already communicate to us extra information (for instance, that the topic is by nature more sensitive, clandestine and elusive).

Perhaps one of my greatest takeaway of the night is something that Prof Natalie said to my group when she walked by, that having “no finding is also a kind of finding”.