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The international political economy of tourism and the neoliberalisation of

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DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2012.654443

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The international political

economy of tourism and the
neoliberalisation of nature:
Challenges posed by selling close
interactions with animals
a
Rosaleen Duffy
a
Politics, Manchester University , Manchester , UK
Published online: 19 Mar 2012.

To cite this article: Rosaleen Duffy (2013) The international political economy
of tourism and the neoliberalisation of nature: Challenges posed by selling close
interactions with animals, Review of International Political Economy, 20:3, 605-626,
DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2012.654443

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 Review of International Political Economy, 2013
Vol. 20, No. 3, 605–626, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2012.654443

The international political economy

of tourism and the neoliberalisation
of nature: Challenges posed by selling
close interactions with animals
Rosaleen Duffy
Downloaded by [University of Kent] at 05:29 05 July 2013

Politics, Manchester University, Manchester, UK

ABSTRACT
This paper examines the inter-relationships between neoliberalism, tourism
and nature. It argues that scholars of international political economy (IPE)
need to engage more fully with the role of nature in driving forward the log-
ics of neoliberalism. Most scholars view nature as a source of accumulation or
as an object of governance, but this paper uses the neoliberalisation of nature
debate to extend our understandings of neoliberalism. In particular, global
tourism has targeted and opened up new frontiers in nature, which serves
to expand and deepen neoliberalism to a wider range of biophysical phe-
nomena. This paper uses the case of elephant tourism to demonstrate how
tourism is not just reflective of neoliberalism, but is in fact a key driver of it,
acting as an environmental fix for capitalism. Further, this paper takes up the
challenge of research on ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’ via engagement
with locally specific contexts and emerging forms of socio-nature in the Thai
tourism industry. It reveals how neoliberalism redraws the boundaries of ac-
cess to nature, thereby shifting the distribution of costs and benefits. Hence,
nature is one of the primary ways in which neoliberalism is constituted, al-
beit in a highly differentiated way. This reminds us not to reify neoliberalism
and accord it a greater degree of power and coherence than it really has.

KEYWORDS
IPE; neoliberalism; nature; tourism; Thailand.

INTRODUCTION
This paper examines the inter-relationships between tourism, nature and
neoliberalism. With some notable exceptions, scholars of international po-
litical economy (IPE) have overlooked the centrality of nature to pro-
cesses of neoliberalisation. In general IPE scholars have examined the


C 2013 Taylor & Francis
 REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

environment as an object of governance structures at a global scale, or as

a source of accumulation in the international system (Brand and Gorg,
2008; Newell, 2008; Zeller, 2008). However, the purpose of this paper is to
develop a better understanding of the role nature itself plays in extending
and deepening neoliberalism, as well as how this plays out in varied ways
on the ground. While this is the focus of a vibrant debate on the neoliberal-
isation of nature amongst geographers (see Bakker, 2010; Braun, 2008; Cas-
tree, 2008a, 2008b, 2009; Heynen et al., 2007; McCarthy and Prudham, 2004:
275–77; Peck and Theodore, 2007), this paper aims to develop that debate
further for IPE. It does so by examining the ways that tourism targets and
opens up new frontiers in nature to extend neoliberal logics to an expand-
ing range of biophysical phenomena. I argue that nature, via the tourism
industry, is one of the primary ways in which neoliberalism is constituted.
In this paper, I argue that the growth of the global tourism industry
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has been one of the core drivers of neoliberalism in the last 20 years. It
is one of a number of global processes that allow neoliberal norms and
values to travel over time and space (Castree, 2009); in essence tourism
offers a spatio-temporal environmental fix for the ‘second contradiction’ of
capitalism, between the imperative of continual growth and finite natural
resources (Fletcher, 2011; O’Connor, 1988); it allows capitalism to turn the
environmental crises it has created into new commodities, as sources of
accumulation (Fletcher, 2011: 451; West and Carrier, 2004). This is how we
can understand nature as an arena in which neoliberalism is constituted
and expanded. A second aim of this paper is to take up the challenge of
research on actually existing ‘neoliberalisms’ to draw out its complexities
and unevenness (Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Castree, 2008b). Brenner
and Theodore (2002) note that there is a tendency in the literatures on
neoliberal nature/neoliberal environments to assume that neoliberalism
is hegemonic, and therefore it is ascribed with greater powers than it really
has (also see Peck and Tickell, 2002; Walker and Cooper, 2011; Mirowski
and Plehwe, 2009). An analysis of the uneven character of neoliberalisation
also reminds us that the effects are not unremittingly negative (Castree,
2008b: 166) because of the ways it redraws the boundaries of access to
nature. In this paper I argue that neoliberalism unfolds in varied ways as it
encounters differing forms of socio-nature (in this case, trained elephants).
Firstly, I outline the debate on neoliberalisation of nature; secondly I
explain how the expansion of global tourism is not merely a reflection of
neoliberalism, but is a key driver of it; thirdly I analyse the development
of nature based tourism in Thailand as part of a wider process of neolib-
eralisation; and finally I examine how processes of neoliberalising nature
play out differently on the ground. In so doing, this paper sheds light on
the need for scholars of IPE to reflect more fully on the inter-relationships
between nature and neoliberalism.

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 DUFFY: TOURISM AND THE BEOLIBERALISATION OF NATURE

TOURISM AND NEOLIBERALISM

In this paper I analyse the growth of elephant back tourism in Thailand
in order to understand how and why nature is an arena in which neolib-
eralism is constituted. Further, the Thai elephant trekking industry is an
excellent case study to examine the contemporary dynamics of the neolib-
eralisation of nature. Tourism has a relatively long history in Thailand, and
has developed to become a major portion of the economy. It pre-dates the
global expansion of neoliberalism, and the economic reforms inspired by
the IMF in the 1980s and 1990s, but since then it has been supported and
promoted by a range of interests including International Financial Institu-
tions (IFIs), donors, NGOs, the private sector and state agencies (discussed
in greater detail below). Current forms of tourism in Thailand developed
out of the creation of ‘rest and recreation areas’ for the US military dur-
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ing the Vietnam War, which themselves drew on a longer tradition of a

sex industry in the country (see Peleggi, 1996; Enloe, 2001). By the late
1970s, the Thai Government identified tourism as a critically important
sector for expansion, and made it a top priority in the 1978–1991 National
Economic and Social Development Plan. Between 1998 and 1999 the Gov-
ernment aimed to attract 17 million tourists through the Amazing Thailand
campaign to counter the negative impacts of the Asian economic crisis
(Kontogeorgopoulous, 1999: 317). The Government was keen to diversify
the tourism sector, and aimed to attract clients from the Asian region, es-
pecially Japan (see Enloe, 2001: 36 and 43–65) as well as Europe and the
US (see Kontogeorgopoulos, 1999).
World Travel and Tourism Council figures rank Thailand eighteenth out
of 181 countries in terms of the absolute size of the tourist economy. As
such it is of central importance of tourism to the wider Thai economy. For
example, the total contribution of travel and tourism to GDP, is forecast to
rise by 7.5 per cent pa from THB 1509.6 billion (14.3 per cent of GDP) in
2011 to THB 3113.9 billion (18.1 per cent) by 2021. In terms of employment,
the total contribution of travel and tourism to employment, including
jobs indirectly supported by the industry, is forecast to rise by 4.0 per
cent pa from 4,523,000 jobs (11.5 per cent of total employment) in 2011 to
6,711,000 jobs (15.5 per cent) by 2021 (WTTC, 2011: 2–6). Finally, following
the tsunami in 2004, numerous global organisations were keen to develop
sustainable tourism plans in Thailand. For example Dr Janaka De Silva, in
the Asian Regional Office for the International Union for the Conservation
of Nature (IUCN) pointed out that IUCN had been involved in drawing
up sustainable tourism plans along with a range of other organisations;
these included The Queensland State Government, the Keenan Institute,
the Canadian Development Agency (CIDA).1
The development of tourism in Thailand reflects the drive to create
expanding ranges of niche products which allow the industry to grow

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once particular markets have become saturated. Thailand is a well known

tourist destination. Its product is highly varied, and includes standard
packages of the three (or four) ‘S’s: sun, sea, sand and sex; it also mar-
kets itself as a destination for cultural tourism (especially to see North-
ern Hill communities), adventure tourism (scuba diving, sea kayaking),
nature-based tourism (visiting national parks, wildlife viewing) (for fur-
ther discussion of the profile of the Thai tourism industry see Cohen,
2008; Peleggi, 1996). Sobthana Anprasert, Assistant Director of the Thai
Tourism Authority in Chiang Mai commented that Thailand has a very
strong product that attracts a range of tourists from the backpacker mar-
ket to the ‘high end’ package tourists, as well as domestic tourists. For
example, the Chiang Mai area, which is the main focus of this paper
focuses on cultural tourism, and caters for specific niches within that
market: spas/wellness, cookery schools, elephant riding, and visiting hill
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communities.2
Placing it in global context, the development of tourism in Thailand
fitted neatly with wider dynamics of neoliberalism. For the purposes of
this paper I characterise neoliberalism as a specific form of capitalism,
centred on privatisation, marketisation deregulation and various forms
of re-regulation. In line with the analyses of critical IPE scholars, it is a
hegemonic project which produces a ‘nebuleuse’ of ideas, institutions and
organisations that create conditions favourable to neoliberalism, so that it
appears as natural, neutral and as if there is no alternative (see Cox, 1996;
Gill, 1998; Overbeek, 1993, 2010). However, even though I characterise
neoliberalism as a hegemonic project, one of the key contributions of this
paper is to offer a more nuanced and differentiated view of it via an
analysis of how neoliberalism encounters different forms of socio-nature.
This indicates that IPE scholars need to engage with the varied ways
it plays out in specific locations. Furthermore, through my analysis of
elephant based tourism in Thailand it is possible to excavate how and why
tourism offers an environmental fix for capitalism.
Neoliberal approaches rose to international prominence during the
1970s and by the mid 1990s they seemed globally dominant, pushed for-
ward by a range of global actors including states, corporations and in-
ternational financial institutions (IFIs) (Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Cox,
1996; Overbeek, 2005; Cammack, 2003; Peck and Theodore, 2007). During
the past 20 years we have witnessed the global expansion of neoliberalism,
including the roll back of states coupled with a roll forward of new forms
of regulation to facilitate private interests, the expansion of market based
mechanisms to new natural resources such as water and genetic material,
as well as the privatisation of public services (Castree, 2008a; also see Mc-
Carthy and Prudham, 2004: 275–77; Heynen and Robbins, 2005; Harvey,
2005; Peck and Tickell, 2002; Liverman, 2004; O’Neill, 2007; Heynen et al.,
2007; Brand and Gorg, 2008; Overbeek, 1993, 2010).
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 DUFFY: TOURISM AND THE BEOLIBERALISATION OF NATURE

In this paper I examine how nature-based tourism recreates and re-

defines nature in ways that make it more compatible with the logics of
neoliberalism. One of the main processes through which nature can be
reconfigured through tourism is via the creation of economic value from
landscapes, animals and experiences. I argue that there is little difference
between various forms of ‘alternative tourism’ (such as ecotourism) and
mass tourism: they are both part of the same continuum and heavily in-
terlinked with global capitalism through their reliance on international
markets (Duffy, 2008; also see Reid, 2003; Fletcher, 2011). One of the core
justifications for nature-based tourism is that nature can be conserved or
saved precisely because of its ‘market value’ (see McAfee, 1999; West and
Carrier, 2004; Graca, 2010; Fletcher, 2011). In the arena of tourism, nature
is produced, reproduced and redesigned as a tourist attraction. In the pro-
cess it is drawn in to the global tourism marketplace as a product to be
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consumed and to make profit (see West and Carrier, 2004; Graca, 2010;
Bianchi, 2004; Reid, 2003: 2–6). The tourism industry is particularly adept
at designing and creating new commodities that clients will pay to see or
experience. It relies on the transformation of places in to desirable ‘must
see’ locations, and the development of new ‘must do’ activities. This in-
cludes the production of new sensory experiences that offer close encoun-
ters with animals (for further discussion see Bulbeck, 2004), which produce
shifts in access to nature and associated patterns of employment. This is
in line with Fletcher’s argument that the redeployment of workers from
the manufacturing sector into service industries like tourism produces a
spatio-temporal fix for capitalism; capitalism benefits in two ways: those
employed in the new service industries become consumers and tourists
themselves consume their services as part of their vacation, which is suf-
ficient to stimulate further growth (Fletcher, 2011: 449–450). As discussed
later in this paper, the case of elephant tourism in Thailand supports this
analysis.
Since the late 1970s global tourism flows have rapidly increased in re-
sponse to greater prosperity and social and economic shifts in the indus-
trialised world, which allowed larger numbers of people to engage in
overseas travel; and this has developed into a diverse range of more spe-
cialised markets for ethical, responsible or green travel which reflect the
changing holidaying tastes of societies in the North (for further discussion
see Butcher, 2003). The broad statistics on tourism show how much it has
grown, and recent figures suggest that although world tourism was nega-
tively affected by the global recession, this was short lived and the industry
has already begun to recover (possibly due to the growth of tourism from
China and India). The UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) figures
indicate that international tourist arrivals grew at 3.7 per cent between
January and August 2008, compared with the same period in 2007; inter-
national tourism receipts grew to US $856 billion, an increase in real terms
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 REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

of 5.6 per cent on 2006; and international tourist arrivals were 903 million
in 2007, up 6.6 per cent on 2006. However, the first quarter of 2009 indi-
cated a sharp drop in international tourist arrivals, down by 22 per cent on
the same period in 2008; the UNWTO stated that the reduction in numbers
was due to fears about an international influenza pandemic coupled with
the global financial crisis. Despite these fluctuations, the initial figures for
2010 indicate that global tourism has now returned to pre-crisis levels.
According to the latest issue of the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer,
worldwide arrivals between January and August 2010 totalled 642 million,
which is 40 million more arrivals than the same period of 2009 (up seven
per cent) and one million more than in the same period of 2008. Using
these trends, the UNWTO expects tourist arrivals to grow at four per cent
in 2011 and estimates that there will be 1.6 billion visitor arrivals in 2020.3
These impressive growth figures mean that tourism is a highly attractive
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option for governments, the private sector and international organisations

as a potential means of delivering economic growth, and even ‘develop-
ment’. Tourism is one of the key global drivers of neoliberalism, not just
reflective of expansion of neoliberalism, it actively extends and deepens
it. The wider context of growing international tourism has led to the pro-
motion of nature-based tourism as a key policy agenda for IFIs as part
of wider liberalisation packages, by national governments, private sector
tour operators and international environmental NGOs. As a result, tourism
has been driven forward by a complex set of global institutions as a strat-
egy by which many states in the South can diversify their economies and
produce environmentally sustainable development (Reid, 2003; Fletcher,
2011: 451–54). In this sense tourism, and the role of nature within it, can
be seen as part of a wider neoliberal hegemonic project promoted by the
worlds leading financial institutions, governments, NGOs and global tour
operators.

NEOLIBERALISING NATURE
Defining neoliberalism itself and identifying what is especially ‘neoliberal’
about elephant back tourism is no easy task. Debates about the precise na-
ture of neoliberalism are already well covered in the literature, and there
is a growing body of critical scholarship on the neoliberalisation of nature,
which aims to understand why the natural world is such an important
target (see Castree, 2008a, 2008b, 2009; Bakker, 2010). The connections be-
tween neoliberalism, environmental change and environmental politics are
deeply, if not inextricably interwoven. As Zeller argues, the commodifica-
tion, control and appropriation of intellectual creativity, as well as natural
resources such as water and air, are key processes of capital expansion into
new fields, and these are sources of regular revenues in the form of rents
(Zeller, 2008: 91). Further, Buscher (2010) suggests that neoliberalism has
610
 DUFFY: TOURISM AND THE BEOLIBERALISATION OF NATURE

produced ‘derivative nature’ on the sense that the value of nature must
be brought into the realm of commodities and priced in monetary terms;
for Buscher, derivatives are financial mechanisms whose monetary value
is derived from value of the underlying assets. Although he focuses on the
relationships between conservation and poverty reduction, his arguments
are also relevant to tourism: ‘nature’ is the underlying asset, while the real
source of value is images and symbols in the realms of branding, public
relations and marketing; the investment of capital is focused on creating
value out of meanings and images that nature (and poverty) (ideally) rep-
resent, rather than what they are (emphasis in the original, Buscher, 2010:
271).
This offers an environmental fix for capitalism and allows it to sustain
itself via the creation of new commodities from the environmental crises
it has created (for further discussion see Fletcher, 2011: 449–51); in the case
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of tourism this is evident in the ways that tour operators and conserva-
tion NGOs encourage visitors to seek out spectacular landscapes or rare
wildlife: marketing experiences with nature with the exhortation to ‘see it
before it’s too late’ or ‘before everyone else finds out’. In Buscher’s terms,
the constructed and the real remain closely tied, so that derivatives allow
capitalism to become increasingly self-referential and to create value out
of itself, further fuelling bubble of neoliberalism (Buscher, 2010: 272). As
such, the capitalisation of nature has become a central characteristic of
current capitalism (Zeller, 2008: 91). Furthermore, neoliberalism can be re-
garded as an inherently and necessarily environmental project, because it
changes the relationships between human communities and biophysical
nature (McCarthy and Prudham, 2004: 275–77; also see Heynen et al., 2007).
In this sense nature is the arena in which neoliberalism is constituted. This
paper adds to that debate via the study of elephant based tourism in Thai-
land, and it reminds IPE scholars that we need to consider the key role of
nature in producing and sustaining neoliberalism.
Determining exactly how current forms of capitalism are neoliberal can
be difficult. Neoliberalism itself is an unevenly applied doctrine and its
practice rarely lives up to its theory (Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Harvey,
2005; Mansfield, 2004). Bakker points out that we can characterise this as a
‘neoliberal’ form of capitalism because we have witnessed the increasing
involvement of private corporations in resource ownership, biotechnolog-
ical innovation and the provision of ecosystem services. While supporters
welcome this as the ‘greening of capitalism’, critics reject it as green wash-
ing of the appropriation of resources and environmental commons for pri-
vate profit, which will ultimately deepen socio-environmental inequities
(Bakker, 2010: 715; Bakker, 2005; Perelman, 2007: 59–60). For example,
Brand and Gorg’s analysis of the Convention on Biodiversity demon-
strates that the dominant strategies for the appropriation of nature are
increasingly aimed at its commercialisation, leading to a purely economic
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appraisal of nature. In this sense the valorisation of nature is crucial for

capitalism and it constitutes a major force in shaping new societal rela-
tionships with nature; for Brand and Gorg this process is at its starkest in
the life science industries, where valorisation acts as a powerful driver of
the reorganization of societal relationships with nature (Brand and Gorg,
2008: 575; also see Zeller, 2008). But even Brand and Gorg accept that this
is a process which is highly contested, and I argue in the rest of this paper
that the neoliberalisation of nature is highly varied because ‘neoliberalism’
and ‘nature’ are not singular, neat categories.
While I see neoliberalism in Coxian terms, as a hegemonic global project,
it is critically important not to reify neoliberalism and ascribe it a greater
level of coherence and dominance than it really deserves (Mansfield, 2004;
Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Bakker, 2005; Castree, 2008a; McCarthy and
Prudham, 2004). The debates on neoliberalisation of nature have their lim-
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itations, which arise in part because of differing ideas of what constitutes

neoliberalism and what constitutes nature. Even the core theoreticians of
neoliberalism did not reach a unified position. Mirowski and Plehwe’s
(2009) recent collection on the Mount Perelin Society demonstrates that
members were divided between subscribers to the Chicago School and fol-
lowers of Frederich Hayek. Walker and Cooper have further developed this
analysis via an interesting examination of the confluence between ecosys-
tems thinking on resilience, associated with Crawford S. Holling and the
work of Frederich Hayek. This is evident in the influence of Hayek’s work
on the natural complexity of market phenomena, which led him to suggest
that no centralised authority could hope to predict or control the evolution
of individual elements of the system (Walker and Cooper, 2011: 148–50).
Turning back to the debate on neoliberal nature, scholars generally view
nature in a narrow sense as a resource rather than taking a more expan-
sive view of how nature is co-constituted by social relations (Bakker, 2010:
715–17; Braun, 2008). Following this, Castree (2008a, 2008b) argues that
there are three weaknesses of the neoliberal nature debate: first, the fail-
ure to sufficiently explain the interactions between neoliberalisation and
the environment; second, the ways that different kinds of neoliberalism
are conflated into one single unitary global project; third, a focus on single
case studies that provide explanations of particular resources, places or
processes but do not expand their analyses to interrogate and articulate
broader patterns, commonalities and differences (also see Bakker, 2009).
If we accept that neoliberalism is not a unitary process then we need to
approach it as uneven and highly differentiated in spatial and temporal
terms (see Peck and Brenner, 2007; Bakker, 2010: 717; Walker and Cooper,
2011; Peck and Tickell, 2002; Castree, 2008b: 166).
Following this, this paper offers an analysis of the local level impacts
of the neoliberalisation of nature in Thailand, to examine the often con-
tradictory, character of neoliberalism on the ground. The case of elephant
612
 DUFFY: TOURISM AND THE BEOLIBERALISATION OF NATURE

tourism in Thailand adds to our comprehension of how nature is targeted

and opened up to drive forward the logics of neoliberalism in an expand-
ing range of places and scales. This use of a specific case means the neat
lines and models generated via theoretical debates can be traced, refined,
critiqued and challenged (Castree, 2008b; Bakker, 2009). It also allows us
to draw out broader patterns to enhance our understanding of the rela-
tionships between nature and neoliberalism. If we approach the debate
in this way, we can see how neoliberalism unfolds as a range of strate-
gies which vary depending on the target and type of socio-nature; this
demonstrates how strategies of neoliberalisation are moderated by differ-
ent kinds of socio-natures, because of their biophysical characteristics, and
because of their articulation with labour practices, consumption processes
and affective relationships (Bakker, 2010: 720–22; Braun, 2008).
This leads us on to the debate about how to conceptualise and interrogate
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the role of animals in the neoliberalisation of nature. The neoliberal nature

debate fails to engage with animals as co-constitutive actors in social rela-
tions. However, in this paper I explicitly view nature, in the form of trained
elephants, as active participants. This intersects with recent debates about
the complex inter-relationships between human and non-human nature,
which attempts to break free of such binary or dualistic understandings.
Drawing on Braun (2008), this constitutes an effort to include the non hu-
man in the analytical frame as a constitutive element of social and economic
life, and to develop new relational ontologies for understanding emerging
forms of socio-nature (also see Whatmore, 2002; Lorimer and Whatmore,
2009). As Bakker (2010: 718) suggests this helps us to be more sensitive
to the pitfalls of seeing nature as a passive backdrop, or victim of global
forces. This allows us to uncover the agency of elephants themselves in
the processes of neoliberalisation; in this sense it is important to remember
that there is no singular ‘essential elephant’ (Lorimer and Whatmore, 2009:
689), but instead a variety of elephants ranging from timber workers to
religious icons to tourist service providers. This is evident in the case of
working elephants in the tourism industry in Thailand, which is the focus
of the next section.

ELEPHANT TOURISM IN THAILAND

The development of the tourism profile in Thailand is important for under-
standing how tourism acts as a driver of neoliberalism, and is not simply as
a reflection of it. The creation of new niche tourism products allows tourism
to expand as a service industry and is central to the creation of new forms of
socio-nature: in this case the reconfiguration of elephants from timber pro-
duction to tourist attractions (see Lorimer and Whatmore, 2009). Thailand
has a long standing cultural practice of using elephants as work animals
in logging, as transport, and latterly as a tourist attraction (see Lair, 2004;
613
 REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

Kontogeorgopoulos, 2009b). Thailand has 3000 elephants, 2000 of which

are privately owned trained elephants; only 1000 are ‘wild’ animals living
in national parks. The 2000 working elephants were largely bred within the
captivity. Lair (2004) identifies two broad categories of ownership: govern-
ment and private, and he further divides privately owned elephants into
mahout owned and non-mahout owned (for further discussion of owner-
ship categories see Lair, 2004: 15–30; also see Kontogeorgopoulos, 2009b:
440). The Government authorities responsible for Thailand’s captive ele-
phants are the Department of Livestock, Department of Transport, and
the Forest Industry Organisation, rather than the Department of National
Parks or Ministry of Environment. This serves to underline the ways that
captive elephants are regarded as working animals rather than as wildlife.
There are 40–50 elephant camps in Thailand, and they are central to
the tourism industry in Northern Thailand, especially around Chiang Mai
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(Kontogeorgopoulos, 2009b: 431; Cohen, 2008: 155–75). Elephant trekking

in Thailand is marketed in a variety of ways to attract the vast range of
tourists seeking different kinds of tourist experiences. There is a grow-
ing body of work on human interactions with animals and the inter-
relationships between them (see Whatmore, 2002; Lorimer and Whatmore,
2009; Bulbeck 2004); these cannot be discussed in full here, but it is clear
that tour operators create and sell new experiences for tourists to consume
as a service. In one sense it could be argued that such experiences are
popular because they meet a need to interact with nature, since the people
in the wealthier industrialised economies are increasingly alienated from
nature in their everyday lives (see Fletcher, 2011; Bulbeck, 2004; Lorimer,
2007 for further discussion). In many ways this is in line with Buscher’s
(2010) analysis of ‘derivative nature’ as discussed earlier in this paper; the
elephants are the underlying assets (nature) while the real sources of value
are the images and symbols developed to appeal to tourists who seek
interactive experiences with animals. Thailand has reconfigured and mo-
bilised the historical practice of using elephants as working animals in the
logging industry to attract international tourists. Apart from elephant rid-
ing, working elephants are also used in circus-style shows to demonstrate
the historical skills used in the logging industry to displays of elephants
painting pictures, and the Elephant Orchestra where elephants play tunes
on a glockenspiel. Other common activities found in elephant shows in-
clude elephants playing football, polo or basketball (Cohen, 2008: 155–75
for further discussion; also see Duffy and Moore, 2010).4
The neoliberalisation of nature through elephant trekking tourism is also
related to the production of an increasing range of new niches for global
consumption, allowing neoliberalism to expand into new arenas as existing
tourist markets become saturated. This is especially the case in the creation
of ‘life tourism’ which revolves around the production of everyday life as a
consumer good. Tour operators that provide trips to see and interact with
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 DUFFY: TOURISM AND THE BEOLIBERALISATION OF NATURE

elephants also offer cultural tours of the surrounding areas, producing new
subjects via tourism which can be sold as experiences (services) to inter-
national tourists. Ethnotourism is an important niche market for northern
Thailand (for an excellent analysis of the relationships between Northern
hill communities and the Thai State see Forsyth and Walker, 2008). As the
Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (Northern Region Office)
commented, all other attractions in the area can be found elsewhere in
Thailand: elephant camps, cookery classes, spa packages, bungy jumping,
white water rafting; however, the tours to see the hill communities are
unique to northern Thailand, and it would be impossible to offer such
cultural tours to ‘created camps’ of villagers in other (beach based) tourist
resorts such a Pattaya and Phuket in southern Thailand.5 One of Chiang
Mai’s main attractions is the Sunday Market which allows villagers from
around the region to sell their crafts to tourists and Thai visitors alike. It is
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run by One Tambon One Product (OTOP), a Government agency. The idea
came from Japan, and the purpose is to encourage and support villagers in
developing their craft products so that they meet international standards.6
The development of the elephant camps is inextricably interlinked with
the expansion of wide varieties of ethnotourism, including craft markets,
in northern Thailand. Firstly, many of the mahouts working in the elephant
camps are from the hill communities (notably the Karen groups); and sec-
ondly visiting the hill communities often includes an elephant ride as part
of the experience; and finally most international visitors spend some time
visiting the hill communities and some time undertaking other activities
or staying in the upscale/luxury elephant camps in the area. The Assistant
Director of TAT in Chiang Mai pointed out that culture would remain a key
part of the tourism product because it offered something unique compared
with other destinations.7
The expansion of tourism has also contributed to the neoliberalisation
of everyday life practice, via the growth of what one operator described
as ‘life tourism’.8 Life tourism means rather than simply visiting hill com-
munities for a short time visitors can engage in homestays where they
are invited to join in the ‘everyday life practices’ of members of the com-
munity. These might include cooking, collecting water or firewood, taking
care of livestock, helping with repairs and odd-jobs around the village. Life
tourism creates experiences from everyday life practices of villagers and
packages them to be ‘sold’ as experiences to international tourists. In this
case tourists are sold derivatives (Buscher, 2010) – the images and sym-
bols of local life such as dance shows, meeting with a shaman or helping
with livestock. The growth of life tourism can be regarded as a ‘fix’ to the
second contradiction of capitalism, allowing further growth in the face of
apparently saturated markets and depleted resources. These experiences
tend to attract the more independent traveller rather than package tourists.
For example in a Lisu village homestay tour, a different group of villagers
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 REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

perform a traditional dance each night, for which the Lodge pays 40 baht
(approximately US$1.2) for each performance into a village fund. The com-
pany also negotiates access to the rivers for white water rafting with the
leaders of local villages, who are paid 200,000 baht (US$6400); tourists are
shown all aspects of Lisu and Akha life for which the village guide is paid
50 baht per visitor (US$1.6), and if tourists meet the local shaman, the
shaman is paid 10 baht per visitor (US$ 0.30). Ratchet Wapeetha manager
of Lisu Lodge pointed out that they rotated the guides from the village to
ensure that the financial benefits were as evenly spread as possible; and the
village receives around 8000 visits per year, which means that although the
villagers do not own and run the lodge, it constitutes a significant source
of income.9 There is a link here to the elephant trekking industry because
the tourists who choose these kinds of homestay programmes often also
engage in elephant-based tourism activities as well as part of their trip;
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this is partly because the use of elephants as a working animal is part of

their life tourism experience.
However, one interviewee expressed concern that hill communities
might be exploited by third parties acting on behalf of tour operators; such
third parties might negotiate access to communities for international tour
operators but the communities did not benefit enough from these engage-
ments with the industry.10 Via tourism everyday life practices are drawn in
to the global economy where they enter the realm of commodities that are
priced in monetary terms. Indeed, it was clear from the ways tours of the
hill communities were advertised in Chiang Mai that some operators per-
petuated a stereotyped and patronising image of hill communities with ex-
hortations to ‘visit the longnecks’ or see villages that are ‘primitive’ and live
with no electricity and running water. Smaller, independent operators such
as the Trekking Collective, place a heavy emphasis on small group tours
and have developed long term relationship with the communities they visit
to try to mitigate the negative impacts of tourism; the Trekking Collective is
involved in providing emergency food supplies to villages in need, spon-
soring children to attend school, sponsorship of the development clean
water supplies and a reforestation project that involves planting native
tree species around hill communities. They had tried to work with larger
tour operators in the past but stopped doing so because there was a differ-
ence in ethos and a pressure to ‘scale up’ to allow larger and larger groups
of tourists to gain access to villages.11 Equally, Tee, a guide for Pooh’s Eco
Trekking stated their commitment to small group tours and emphasised
that on their tours they did not encourage communities to put on dancing
shows for tourists because they should be treated as though they were
part of everyday village life. In addition, they were careful to rotate their
visits amongst different families in the villages to spread the benefits and
impacts of tourism.12 Life tourism is a good example of how the tourism in-
dustry extends and deepens neoliberalism, to new arenas. Tourism drives
616
 DUFFY: TOURISM AND THE BEOLIBERALISATION OF NATURE

neoliberal logics to a wider range of places, processes and scales, thereby

fuelling further expansion of neoliberalism. Life tourism creates new sub-
jects via the production and marketing of new niches by tour operators
seeking to expand their reach once existing markets are saturated.

SHIFTING ACCESS, COSTS AND BENEFITS

As Brenner and Thedore (2002: 362) point out, one of the key characteristics
of neoliberalisation is the destruction of existing institutional contexts and
the creation of new infrastructures for market oriented economic growth,
commodification and the rule of capital. Processes of neoliberalisation are
continually mutating, transforming and reproducing to create new forms
and supportive infrastructures for the extension of market relations (Bren-
ner and Theodore, 2002: 375–76). The re-regulation of the environment un-
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der neoliberalism produces a shift in costs and benefits (Bakker, 2010: 727;
Castree, 2008b: 166). While tourism provides an environmental fix for ne-
oliberalism to continue to expand, such fixes shift the burdens of neoliberal-
ism via the creation of new opportunities to engage with the global system.
Prior to 1989 elephants were primarily used in teak logging by the Gov-
ernment of Thailand and by private operators. However following the
1989 ban on logging, the elephants in the logging camps faced an uncer-
tain future. While a limited amount of logging still continued in Govern-
ment reserves, many elephants were put out of work by the decision in
1989. Following the logging ban some elephants were released, but the
amount of land under national parks is not large enough to provide suf-
ficient habitat for all the elephants in Thailand. There is one programme
aimed at retraining captive elephants that worked in the logging industry
so that they could be released into the wild; the Elephant Reintroduction
Foundation is one of Queen Sirikit’s special projects and a portion of its
initial funding came from WWF-International.13 Richard Lair at TECC ar-
gued that there were good reasons to re- introduce some elephants to the
wild, for instance elderly elephants who might ‘retire’ from working in
the tourism industry, or a breeding population to ensure long term con-
servation of the species. However he pointed out that not all elephants are
suited to ‘re-wilding’, for instance healthy bulls could easily become pests
if they strayed outside the parks and began raiding crops in neighbouring
villages.14 This is where the creation of links between trained elephants
and global neoliberalism via the tourism industry became an important
means by which elephants and mahouts survived the logging ban. This
moved elephants out of the labourforce for logging and into the service
industry of tourism (see Fletcher, 2011), which in turn reflects the wider
political economy of tourism which allows wealthy Northern tourists to
purchase new services in the South, including interactive experiences with
elephants.
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 REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

Interactive experiences with elephants are an important source of em-

ployment in the tourism industry. Each trained elephant requires a mahout
to work with it – and without the mahout the elephant can be extremely
dangerous. For the mahout the elephant is a source of income, but it eats
between 120 and 250 kgs of food per day and can cost up to US $400 per
month to keep (Cohen, 2008: 142). Without access to work in the logging
camps the elephants and their mahouts had to find alternative employ-
ment (Kontogeorgopoulos, 2009b).15 The head of the Mahout Training
School pointed out that the ban created the phenomenon of ‘street wan-
dering elephants’ – unemployed elephants and mahouts who came to the
big cities and tourist areas to beg on the streets.16 In Bangkok the problem
was especially acute because of the dangers posed to traffic and pedestri-
ans. At the time, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the
Forest Industry Organisation expressed concerns regarding elephant wel-
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fare: they were working long hours (including at night) they were being
frightened by the noise and lights of city traffic, and walking on tarmac
and concrete is painful and leads to potentially crippling disorders in the
elephants’ feet.17
Once the Government banned elephants from urban areas, there was a
need to find alternative forms of employment for the elephants and ma-
houts. The tourism industry seemed to provide a neat solution, or fix. The
unemployed elephants and their mahouts had the opportunity of employ-
ment as tourist attractions, and the industry developed new commodities
out of marketing everyday working practices of elephants (such as of-
fering transport and pulling logs) and of mahouts (washing and feeding
elephants) (Fletcher, 2011: 449–51). For example, the upscale Anantara Re-
sort hired street wandering elephants with their mahouts to offer their
guests elephant rides and a chance to experience aspects of mahoutship
and elephant training. This provided mahouts with accommodation and a
salary, as well as access to veterinary care for the elephant. The mahout can
choose to leave at any time, but once they have stayed at Anantara for more
than three months they are offered additional benefits, such as sick pay
and insurance. Anantara claims to extend the activities of TECC into the
Chiang Rai region, and certainly the hotel and the Government centre have
worked closely with each other in recent years.18 The ways that elephants
found new sources of employment in the tourism industry demonstrates
how neoliberalism is able to create new sources of accumulation (tourist
experiences) as it targets and opens up new frontiers in nature. Further it
demonstrates the ways that neoliberalism redraws boundaries of access
to nature, thereby shifting and reallocating the costs and benefits (Bakker,
2010; Castree, 2009; Brenner and Theodore, 2002).
It is important to explain the key differences between the elephant camps
in Northern Thailand to understand the different ways the neoliberalisa-
tion of nature plays out in varied ways on the ground. The transfer of
618
 DUFFY: TOURISM AND THE BEOLIBERALISATION OF NATURE

working elephants into the tourism industry came from small beginnings
in the Government-run Thai Elephant Conservation Centre. It started out
as the ‘Young Elephant Training Centre’ as a place for training mahouts
and providing short courses for officials who might encounter elephants
as part of their duties (e.g., police officers who confiscated elephants in
urban areas, zookeepers, etc). TECC then began to offer tourist rides for
elephants and a short show where elephants displayed the skills they had
once used in the logging industry, such as skidding and piling up logs. A
typical ‘tour’ offered by TECC is the one day mahout training programme
which includes learning basic commands, how to control the elephant
while riding it and how to look after the elephant, including feeding and
bathing the elephants, as well as clearing up elephant dung.19 As the TECC
tourist ‘product’ developed the mahouts trained the elephants to play mu-
sical instruments. The idea was then taken up by the private sector, and
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a number of elephant camps have opened in the Chiang Mai area which
extended the product again to include elephant painting (an idea which
originally came from the US),20 aimed at the international tourist market.
Since TECC is a national government institution it has to be affordable to
Thai visitors, and so it has found it increasingly difficult to compete with
the elephant camps that have developed around Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai,
and Pai near Mae Hong Son aimed at international tourists.
Since the camps are not defined as tour operators, the Tourism Au-
thority of Thailand has no power to regulate the camps, and they are
characterised by a high level of variability in size and quality (Kontoge-
orgeopoulos, 2009a; Duffy and Moore, 2010). For example, Khun Lek, the
owner of the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai campaigns against the
use of elephants for tourist rides, and has a stated commitment to allowing
elephants to live in the a way that is closest to the ‘wild’ as possible.21 The
larger privately owned camps have developed a ‘luxury tourism’ product
in the areas around Chiang Mai to the Golden Triangle which is primarily
aimed at overseas tourists on pre-booked package holidays from Europe,
Australia and North America. For example, a major international tour op-
erator, Kuoni, offers tours to Thailand that include a stay at the Anantara
Golden Triangle Resort and the Four Seasons resort in Chiang Saen which
provide elephant based activities to guests.22 Similarly, major international
tour operators contract large locally based tour operators to provide pack-
ages to experience elephant trekking and mahout training in Chiang Mai
area; Mae Sa, Mae Taman and Chiang Dao Elephant Camps are good ex-
amples of these, and reflect the ways that the tourism industry creates
luxury service industries for consumption by wealthier tourists from the
North.23
However, while tourism serves to expand neoliberalism further, it is im-
portant to note that it does not provide ‘the solution’ to long term conser-
vation of elephants in Thailand. Although international tourism has been
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Thailand’s single biggest foreign exchange earner for the last 10 years,
those involved in tourism are painfully aware of how fickle the industry
can be. The tourism industry has weathered the tsunami of 2004, as well
as outbreaks of avian flu and SARs.24 Partly as a result of this the TECC
has explored other avenues to demonstrate the importance of conserving
elephants in Thailand. TECC, as a Government institution is not able to
engage with private tour operators in the same way as the larger private
elephant camps; they are not able to negotiate with tour operators over a
quota of visitors per year or pay the fees demanded by the operators. They
are required to keep the costs of entry at a low level so that Thai people can
afford to visit the Centre. Overall TECC has to rely on Thai visitors, such
as school groups and domestic tourists for revenue.25 Prasop Tipprasert,
Chief of the Training School for Thai Elephants and Mahouts argued that
tourist rides and even the mahout training experiences might not be the
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basis for funding elephants in the longer term. Therefore, TECC had devel-
oped new products from their elephants, including elephant dung paper
and organic fertiliser. He was also involved in a medical study with the
University of Chiang Mai about the positive influence of experiences with
elephants on autistic children. He suggested that through the study on
autism he hoped that Thai people would see the utility of elephants and
therefore support their conservation.26 Therefore, their long-term survival
might well depend on demonstrating their utility but not necessarily their
market value. Even in an area where the elephant tourism industry is
booming, those working with elephants are wary of relying on a global
industry to save the species (and their employment) in the longer term.
Indeed it is very interesting to note that Tipprasert’s view was that the fu-
ture lay with demonstrating the wider importance of the elephant to Thai
people.
This view of elephants as more than just a commodity taps into the
historical relationship with elephants through the practice of mahoutship.
For example, mahouts will pray to Ganesha before any journey with an
elephant; Ganesha is a very popular idol in Thailand, as well as the wider
South and Southeast Asian regions, and it is common for people to make an
offering to Ganesha before any undertaking. In addition to this, elephants
were once a status symbol in Thailand. Elephant symbolism is common
in Thailand, from the logo of Chang Beer (Chang is Thai for elephant) to
the lapel pins worn by students at Chiang Mai University. Furthermore,
in 1998 the Government declared 13 March National Elephant Day, dur-
ing which elephants are celebrated and treated to large ‘fruit buffets’ that
draw crowds of Thai and foreign tourists alike to elephant camps.27 Kon-
togeorgopoulos (2009b: 443) argues that Thailand has failed to conserve
elephants based on their intrinsic worth as living creatures, and so their
future depends on demonstrating their economic importance and utility
to human beings. However, there are very few people in Thailand who
620
 DUFFY: TOURISM AND THE BEOLIBERALISATION OF NATURE

believe that culture alone can save the elephants. Due to the high number
of captive elephants, combined with the amount of money required to
keep them, and their survival will be reliant on their ability to pay their
way, either in the tourism industry or by providing other services for Thai
people.

CONCLUSION
Elephant riding in Thailand indicates the ways that neoliberalism can
be extended to an increasing range of non-human phenomena through
the development of new tourist products. Tourism is not just reflective
of global neoliberalism, but constitutes one of its key drivers, extending
neoliberal principles to an expanding range of biophysical phenomena.
This is because tourism allows neoliberalism to target and open up new
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frontiers in nature (Castree, 2008a, 141; Castree, 2009), and as such it acts
as an environmental fix for capitalism. However, an analysis of tourism
also shows that this is an uneven process which is shaped the local context
and the specificity of certain forms of socio-nature. This reveals that the
tourism industry drives and deepens global processes of neoliberalisation,
but does so in complex and varying ways. On the one hand, it reflects
the ways that neoliberalism can be seen as a hegemonic project, promoted
and expanded by a range of international planners, including donors, IFIs,
government agencies and private operators. On the other hand, it reveals
neoliberalism is highly differentiated as it meets specific challenges of local
social contexts and specific forms of socio-nature. This has not led to an in-
evitable and all consuming process which displaces all other values and ap-
proaches to nature. The precise ways in which nature can be neoliberalised
are dependent on wider cultural and socio-political contexts. Tourism
has developed experiences with elephants as valuable commodities,
but local cultural traditions associated with elephants, coupled with the
wider socio-political conditions, shape that process. This returns us to the
question of the agency of nature (Braun, 2008; Lorimer and Whatmore,
2009; Bakker, 2010); the specific qualities of elephants themselves shape
the ways they can be repackaged as tourist attractions and used as tourism
service providers. As a general rule, scholars of IPE have overlooked the
centrality of nature in processes of neoliberalisation, instead focusing on
it as a source of accumulation in the international system or as an object
for global management (see Brand and Gorg, 2008; Newell, 2008; Zeller,
2008). Scholars of IPE need to reflect more fully on the importance of na-
ture to processes of neoliberalisation. Neoliberalisation of nature is not a
neat process, easily implemented in standardised ways. Analysing interac-
tions between nature, tourism and neoliberalism in Thailand allows us to
gain greater insight into the ways that nature is a primary arena in which
neoliberalism is constituted.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I acknowledge the generous support from the Economic and Social Re-
search Council (ESRC) for funding this research, grant number RES-000-
22-2599 (title: Neoliberalising Nature? A Comparative Analysis of Asian and
African Elephant Based Ecotourism). I am very grateful to Dr. Lorraine Moore
for her insights and work in this project. I thank three anonymous refer-
ees for their very constructive comments. Finally, this research would not
have been possible without the support of the Thai Elephant Conservation
Centre and Maetaman Elephant Camp. This paper is based on fieldwork
conducted during 2008 for a comparative study of tourism in Botswana
and Thailand. It involved a total of three months fieldwork in Botswana
and three months in Thailand, including 75 interviews in Kasane, Maun
and Gaborone (Botswana) plus Bangkok and Chiang Mai (Thailand) as the
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main centres of elephant based tourism.

NOTES
1 Interview with Dr Janaka De Silva, Coordinator of Projects, Thailand
Programme, IUCN Asia Regional Office, Bangkok, 6 March 2008. Also
see http://www.iucn.org/about/union/secretariat/offices/asia/asia_where_
work/thailand/?5559/Thailands-Andaman-aspirations (accessed 26 January
2011).
2 Interview with Sobthana Anprasert, Assistant Director, Tourism Authority of
Thailand, Northern Region Office 1, Chiang Mai, 18 March 2008. Also see the
official website of The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), http://www.
tourismthailand.org/ (accessed 26 January 2011).
3 World Tourism Organisation figures for 2010 available at http://85.
62.13.114/media/news/en/press_det.php?id=6961 (accessed 18 January
2011); also see http://www.unwto.org/index.php (accessed 18 January 2011).
4 Observations from Maetaman Elephant Camp, 7 April 2008; Mae
Sa Elephant Camp, 10 April 2008; and TECC, 13 March 2008
and 10 April 2008. Also see http://www.maetamanelephantcamp.com/;
http://www.maesaelephantcamp.com/; and http://www.changthai.com/
(accessed 20 January 11).
5 Interview with Sobthana Anprasert, Assistant Director, Tourism Authority of
Thailand, Northern Region Office 1, Chiang Mai, 18 March 2008.
6 For further information on OTOP see http://www.thai-otop-city.com/
(accessed 23 January 2011). OTOP covers a range of products including
chemicals and foodstuffs, not just craft products. For further infor-
mation on the Sunday Market, or ‘Walking Street’ see http://www.
embracechiangmai.com/index.php?page=sundaymarketchaingmai (ac-
cessed 23 January 2011).
7 Interview with Sobthana Anprasert, Assistant Director, Tourism Author-
ity of Thailand, Northern Region Office 1, Chiang Mai, 18 March 2008.
Also see the official website of The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT),
http://www.tourismthailand.org/ accessed 26.01.11
8 Interview with Caroline Marsh, Trekking Collective, Chiang Mai, 10 March
2008.

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 DUFFY: TOURISM AND THE BEOLIBERALISATION OF NATURE

9 Interview with Rachet Wapeetha, branch office and project development man-
ager, East-West Siam Tour Operator/Manager of Lisu Lodge, Lisu Lodge, 16
March 2008; observations by the author, Lisu Lodge, 16 March 2008; also see
http://www.asian-oasis.com/hilltribes-trekking/lisu-lodge (accessed 22 Jan-
uary 2011).
10 Interview with Dr. Janaka De Silva, Coordinator of Projects, Thailand Pro-
gramme, IUCN Asia Regional Office, Bangkok, 6 March 2008.
11 Interview with Caroline Marsh, Trekking Collective, Chiang Mai, 10 March
2008; also see http://www.trekkingcollective.com/ (accessed 26 January
2011); this issue was also raised in an interview with Tee, Trekking
Guide, Pooh’s Eco Trekking, Chiang Mai, 10 March 2008, also see
http://www.pooh-ecotrekking.com/ (accessed 24 January 2011).
12 Interview with Tee, Trekking Guide, Pooh’s Eco Trekking, Chiang Mai, 10
March 2008, also see http://www.pooh-ecotrekking.com/ (accessed 24 Jan-
uary 2011).
13 http://www.elephantreintroduction.org/eng/act_en.html (accessed 20 Jan-
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uary 2011); and interview with Richard Lair, Thai Elephant Conservation Cen-
tre, Lampang, 13 March 2008.
14 Interview with Richard Lair, Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, Lampang, 13
March 2008.
15 Interview with Somchat Changkarn, Mahout Training School, TECC, Lam-
pang, 20 March 2008. Interview with Pat, Theerapat, Patara Elephant Farm,
Chiang Mai, 6 April 2008 (see also Scigliano, 2004).
16 Interview with Prasop Tipprasert, Elephant Specialist, Forest Industry Organ-
isation/Chief of the Training School for Thai Elephants and Mahouts, TECC,
Lampang, 20 March 2008; Pers comm Pornsawan Pongsopawijit, Faculty of
Veterinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University, 17 March 2008.
17 Interview with Prasop Tipprasert, Elephant Specialist, Forest Industry Organ-
isation/Chief of the Training School for Thai Elephants and Mahouts, TECC,
Lampang, 20 March 2008; Pers comm Pornsawan Pongsopawijit, Faculty of Vet-
erinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University, 17 March 2008; Interview with the
Manager Thai Permanent Life exhibition, Thailand Cultural Centre, Bangkok,
25 March 2008.
18 Interview with Somchat Changkarn, Mahout Training School, TECC, Lam-
pang, 20 March 2008; for further information on Anantara Resort see
http://goldentriangle.anantara.com/Elephant-Camp/default.aspx (accessed
22 January 2011).
19 Interview with Somchat Changkarn, Mahout Training School, TECC, Lam-
pang, 20 March 2008; also see http://www.changthai.com/ (accessed 22 Jan-
uary 11) for further details on the mahout training programmes.
20 Interview with Anchalee Kalampimjit, Manager Maetaman Elephant Camp,
owner of the Elephant Life Experience Camp, Maerim, 7 April 2008–8 April
2008.
21 http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/ (accessed 9 November 2010).
22 http://www.kuoni.co.uk (accessed 7 April 2011).
23 www.MaeSaelephantcamp.com (accessed 20 January 11); http://www.
chiangdao.com/nest (accessed 20 January 2011).
24 Interview with Caroline Marsh, Trekking Collective, Chiang Mai, 10 March
2008; Interview with Prasop Tipprasert, Elephant Specialist, Forest Indus-
try Organisation/Chief of the Training School for Thai Elephants and Ma-
houts, TECC, Lampang, 20 March 2008; and Interview with Rachet Wapeetha,

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branch office and project development manager, East-West Siam Tour Opera-
tor/Manager of Lisu Lodge, Lisu Lodge, 16 March 2008.
25 Interview with Richard Lair, Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, Lampang, 13
March 2008.
26 Interview with Prasop Tipprasert, Elephant Specialist, Forest Industry Organ-
isation/Chief of the Training School for Thai Elephants and Mahouts, TECC,
Lampang, 20 March 2008.
27 ‘A Jumbo Feast to Trumpet Elephant Day in Thailand’, The Times
(U), 14 March 2009, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/
article5904308.ece; I also attended the National Elephant Day celebrations at
the TECC in 2008, and because the TECC is the national institution for elephant
training the celebrations drew large crowds and a lot of media interest.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTOR
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Rosaleen Duffy is Professor of International Politics at the University of Manch-

ester. She is author of Nature Crime: How We’re Getting Conservation Wrong
(Yale University Press, 2010) and co-author with Dan Brockington and Jim Igoe
of Nature Unbound: Conservation, Capitalism and the Future of Protected Areas
(Earthscan, 2008). She has written extensively on ecotourism, community based
tourism, neoliberalism, conservation, protected areas and the impact of criminali-
sation.

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