Drawing the balance, looking ahead
Drawing the balance, looking ahead
Ming period records show the Chinese confronting “bandit” armies in Yunnan using war elephants in the Indian manner, but the Chinese themselves refused to do so. The “land ethic” of India allows for the juxtaposition of cropland, pasture and forest; that of China proper maximizes cropland at the expense of pasture, forest and wild animals including elephants. After the demise of the war elephant there was a two-century reign of the timber elephant, now coming to an end except in Myanmar. Prospects for the persistence of Asian elephants, now protected in the wild, are reasonably good, though elephant-human conflict will be a continuing problem, while African elephants are rapidly being killed off for the ivory trade.
Keywords: Elephants in Chinese history, The timber elephant, Elephant-human conflict
Chicago Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
