Six weeks tracing the Asian elephant across Thailand: its ecology, its behavior, and the institutions that govern coexistence. Built and led in-country, ready to co-deliver.
You add it to your catalog; I lead the curriculum and a resident Thailand team runs operations on the ground. The itinerary, field methods, and institutional access already exist. Bring your students and academic framework, and we co-develop the syllabus, risk-management plan, and budget to your institution’s requirements.
A 43-day itinerary across 12 sites, with field methods, assessment, and an independent research project built in. Students need no prior field experience, and the structure is a template: we adapt duration, credit load, and academic calendar to your program.
A resident instructor in Bangkok, a licensed Thai coordinator and translator, and a logistics partner running operations at every site.
Five elephant conservation models compared side by side, grounded in relationships and ongoing conservation work at these sites.
Six weeks based in working conservation sites and the communities around them.
One line of inquiry runs through the program. Students move from elephants as symbols of Thai kingship, through the 1989 logging ban that displaced more than 2,000 working elephants, to the institutions managing wild populations and human-elephant conflict today.
Students weigh the evidence on alternative-livelihood projects, including where they fail and why.
From Bangkok up through the northern highlands, down the western forest belt, and back: Chiang Mai, the Western Forest Complex, and Kaeng Krachan, returning to Bangkok for final presentations.
Orientation, river temples, and the program’s framing.
Forest surveys, crop-raiding interviews, and conflict-response fieldwork.
Elephants in Thai statecraft: King Naresuan’s war elephants.
The 1989 logging ban and the captive-elephant transition; research workshop.
Five days of forest behavioral observation with Karen mahouts.
Highland bird surveys at 2,565 m and a livelihood-transition model.
State captive management and the economics of elephant care.
Elephants as symbols of kingship across 800 years.
Mammal transects and camera traps in Southeast Asia’s largest protected forest.
Rice ecology, biochar, and smallholder farm economics.
Three days of agroforestry fieldwork; why livelihood projects underperform.
Conservation and Indigenous rights in the Western Forest Complex.
Research presentations, final exam, and synthesis.
Students work alongside active conservation operations, not around them. Every relationship is current and personal.
Observation-only forest sanctuary; behavioral fieldwork with Karen mahouts.
Agroforestry and GEDSI safeguarding in the Western Forest Complex buffer.
State captive-management facility and mahout school in Lampang.
Ranger access for patrols, conflict response, and guided surveys.
Community sessions on displacement and conservation rights at Kaeng Krachan.
Biochar and soil-carbon fieldwork in the central plains.
Watershed forest ecology and transect practice near Chiang Mai.
City guesthouses, Karen homestays, and camping at national-park sites.
Locally sourced and cooked on site; dietary needs accommodated with notice.
A private van and professional driver throughout; no internal flights.
A licensed Thai coordinator and translator for every community session and interview.
Tyler is a PhD candidate in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he teaches undergraduate courses on conservation, environmental justice, and human-elephant conflict. He also teaches for the Center for Wildlife Studies and has guest lectured for the School for Field Studies. His expertise comes from years of field research in Thai communities living alongside elephants, and he lives in Bangkok with working relationships at every site on this itinerary.
A licensed Thai guide and professional translator. Mook runs in-country operations, permits, and community liaison across the route.
LinkedIn →Our on-the-ground logistics partner, coordinating transport, lodging, and site operations at every location.
mitriacc.com →A field-tested Thailand program with the curriculum and operations already built, and adaptable to your academic calendar, credit load, and group size. Bring your students and framework; we run it on the ground.