Mechanized logging is feasible when forests are clear-cut, but the government's Myanmar Timber Enterprise, which has a monopoly on teak extraction, uses a selection system inherited from British colonial days. Under this system, only trees of a certain girth can be felled within a designated area that is harvested in a 30-year cycle. With much of the often dense forest left intact, elephants are not only more suitable but are less destructive to the environment than churning, polluting mechanical skidders. Myanmar Timber Enterprise, which employs 2,700 elephants around the country, runs what Lair describes as a classic 19th century logging operation. The still unnamed baby is getting accustomed to being roped to a tree, his patience rewarded by sugar cane, tamarind and other pachyderm favorites.
Elephant kindergarten lasts a month, with students learning one command every two days.
Sessions run daily from 5 a.m. to midnight, with one hour of rest and bathing alternating with an hour of classroom time. Not unlike humans, elephants go to school until age 18, when they're put to work. There's mandatory retirement at 55. Next comes the harness, originally designed in the time of Myanmar's ancient kings. Pig fat, a lubricant to prevent skin sores, is smeared on, and four elephants, along with a baby tangled around its mother's legs, set off from one of the seven working camps into the forest.