Kaeng Krachan National Park (KKNP) is Thailand’s largest national park, covering 2,900 km_ at the southern end of the Tenasserim Range on the border with Myanmar, and is part of a larger protected forest complex covering 4,373 km_.

There are reasons to believe that KKNP contains a large and internationally significant population of Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus), but no population estimate is available for the park, and little is known about the distribution of elephants within the park or the threats to the elephants and their habitat. Lack of such vital baseline datasets hampers effective management of KKNP and its elephant population.

The first major aim of the Kaeng Krachan Elephant Project is to address this problem by training park staff in modern survey methods and conducting surveys to:

1. assess the size and distribution of the elephant population in KKNP using methods shown to be effective for forest elephant population surveys elsewhere in Southeast Asia; and
   
2. to identify threats to the elephant population and elephant habitat.

One exception to the lack of data on KKNP’s elephants is human–elephant conflict (HEC), particularly crop raiding, which is known to be a major problem around KKNP.

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