Conservation Tourism
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In April 2007, with the help of Charlotte Johnston, a sustainable tourism specialist from the UK, we conducted a feasibility study to find out how best to develop an effective and viable conservation tourism initiative for the benefit of local communities, forest conservation and the elephants of Salakpra. Kanchanaburi hosts more than five million tourists a year, but most of them come to see its famous war memorials and infamous tiger temple. Few people appreciate the province's natural attractions and even fewer know that it still supports several populations of increasingly threatened wild elephants. Our aim is to use tourism as a conservation tool, but this is much harder to achieve than using tourism as a business or development tool.