The rides are ending. It took years of quiet, stubborn work to get here. I've spent years watching campaigns chip away at elephant riding, so this story out of Nepal stopped me mid-scroll here in Bali. For decades, Chitwan National Park was the elephant safari capital of Nepal. At peak, around 90 elephants lined up every morning in Sauraha to carry tourists into the park. That number has now halved. The United Elephant Safari Cooperative once managed 60+ elephants. Today it runs 30. It's tempting to say "tourists did it." They mattered. European and American visitors largely stopped booking rides, and operators listened. But that demand shift was built on years of campaigning by people and organisations who did the hard, unglamorous groundwork: → animal_nepal, whose 2012 welfare study first put hard evidence behind what everyone could see. → tiger_tops, who proved a chain-free, ride-free model could work and stay in business. → elephantaidinternational and founder Carol Buckley, w...