Elephant Culture Matter for China’s Asian Elephants Conservation

• 作者: Gaofan Zhu Guilian Jiang Lei Zhang Mingyong Chen Ting Lv Wenlan Zhao Yongjing Tang Zhengling Li
• 来源期刊: 动物研究(英文)
• 学科: 经济
• 关键词: Asian elephant Elephant cultures ETHNOECOLOGY Conservation Biology
• 年，卷（期）: 2020,（2）
• 页码范围: 23-26
• 页数: 4页
• 分类号: F42

摘要

Traditional anthropogenic impacts such as hunting,using as war-elephant,trading of ivory,paying tribute to the imperial court and so on,were once thought to be directly responsible for the rapid decline of Asian elephants in China.But in Yunnan Province,China,a unique human factor such as the traditional elephant culture of local ethnic minorities,is an important factor in the conservation of Asian elephants.In these areas,we investigated by means of village interviews,field surveys and data collection,the results show that the elephant culture of ethnic minorities has a great impact on people’s thoughts and behaviors,these traditional culture and belief(that mean taking elephant as the God,holding elephant as a belief,worshipping elephant and praise it)urges people to actively protect elephants and avoid more human-elephant conflicts.To enhance the public awareness of Asian elephant conservation,the Chinese Government or international environmental organizations should give higher attention and support to these elephant cultures.