For those who are interested in the conservation of Asian Elephants

*China, Laos to create natural reserve to protect Asian elephant*
> 
> Xinhua, December 14, 2009
> 
> China and Laos have signed an agreement to jointly build a cross-
> border natural reserve to better protect Asian elephants and other
> rare animals, an official said Sunday.
> 
> Tang Zhongming, deputy director of the state-level Xishuangbanna
> Natural Reserve Administration, said the natural reserve covers 31,300
> hectares of forests in China and further 23,400 hectares in Laos.
> 
> The protection of rare animals, including Asian elephants and Indo-
> Chinese tigers, is facing mounting pressure from economic and social
> development and increasing human mobility, Tang said.
> 
> The bio-diversity in the region also was increasingly at risk, the
> official said.
> 
> "The cross-border natural reserve is a pioneering and also a necessary
> work," Tang said.
> 
> According to the agreement, the two nations will provide technical
> training for staff members in the reserve and boost villagers'
> protection awareness and people-to-people exchanges, he said.
> 
> The two will carry out study on human-elephant conflicts and work out
> solutions, jointly patrol and monitor resources, and launch inquiries
> on bio-diversity.
> 
> The two will also launch campaign to promote resources protection and
> set up a geographical information sharing system concerning the
> natural reserve.
> 
> About 250 Asian elephants, the largest land animal in Asia, live in
> the wild in the extreme southwest of China's Yunnan Province. The
> elephants frequently cross the bordering forests.
> 
> As recently as 1995, only 25,600 to 32,750 Asian elephants were
> thought to remain in the wild from India to Vietnam, according to the
> World Wildlife Fund.
> 
> Since then, several populations have dwindled still further and
> scientists fear that the current populations may have fallen well
> below 1995 estimates, the agency said on its website.
> 
> Yang Songhai, director of the Xishuangbanna Natural Reserve
> Administration, said that after years of bilateral exchanges and
> cooperation, the two sides have reached a consensus that natural
> protection has no borders.
> 
> "It's our unshirkable duty to protect the wild life and maintain an
> ecological balance in the bordering region," Yang said.
> 
> The joint natural reserve is part of the efforts to build better
> habitats for the wildlife in the bordering tropical rain forests.
> 
> The efforts aimed to connect the separated tropical rain forests into
> bigger and also better habitats for the huge animals and other
> wildlife, Yang said.
> 
> The Asian Development Bank is also funding model projects to build
> protection corridors linking Xishuangbanna and the Luangnamtha
> province in Laos, Yang said.