Laos is known as “The Land of Million Elephants” for years. The reason for that was that the capital at that time was the Luang Prabang in the northern mountains of Laos.
This part of the country had lush jungle and huge grazing fields which sustained massive herds of wild elephants- and these large strong animals were cough, trained and used largely as the principal engines of war and a main means of transportation for the Laos Royal Family back in ancient times.
But unfortunately, Laos doesn’t have that many elephants anymore. Through the long history, Laos used to be called “Lane Xang”, which can be translate to be “The Land of Million Elephants”.
It was named as “Lan Xang” by the King Fa Ngum in 1354. The reason is that he capital of the Kingdom was Luang Prabang and it was surrounded by large grazing pastures with wild herds of elephants lived there.
Apart from that, another reason is that the elephants were used as the principal engines of war
and a main means of transportation for the Laos Royal Family back in ancient time. Asian elephants loved to live in Laos because there used to have extensive forest and crops to live on and there was a sparse human population.
However, in modern days, the wars and bombs have scared the elephants away, the loss of natural habitat like the expansion of settlements, agriculture and industrial infrastructure, the trade of the ivory and the forests have being cut down which resulting in less food.
So the elephant population in Laos is dwindling fast. Now, Laos only have about 700 elephants left in the wild. And there are only about 400 domesticated elephants.
Wi
th an increase in demand for elephants by the logging industry, the animals are made to work at a furious pace. They are overworked and exhausted, and as a result cannot reproduce.
So, there is therefore an urgent need to safeguard the remaining elephants and create a breeding programme for them. Laos holds an unimaginable natural beauty that tak
es your breath away, but within this beauty you can almost sense that the country has not always been as peaceful as it looks.
From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions—equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years – making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in h
istory. The bombings were part of the U.S.
Secret War in Laos to support the Royal Lao Government against the Pathet Lao and to interdict traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The bombings destroyed many villages and displaced hundreds of thousands of Lao civilians during the nine-year period.
Up to a third of the bombs dropped did not explode, leaving Laos contaminated with vast quantities of unexploded ordnance (UXO). Over 20,000 people have been killed or injured by UXO in Laos since the bombing ceased.
The wounds of war are not only
felt in Laos. When the Americans withdrew from Laos in 1973, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the country, and many of them ultimately resettled in the United States.
