In 1996, Bali-based Australian tour operator Nigel Mason and his Indonesian wife Yanie travelled to Way Kambas National Park, a state-run elephant sanctuary in south Sumatra, the biggest island in Indonesia, to acquire animals for an elephant park in Bali.

The first of its kind in Indonesia, Way Kambas was established in the 1980s to help conserve, train and breed the critically endangered Sumatran elephant, one of the two subspecies of the Asian elephant and one of three elephant species in the world.

What Nigel and Yanie saw there broke their hearts. The park had recently been ravaged by fire and there were dozens of elephants, mostly skin and bones, chained to concrete blocks without access to food or water, their sensitive grey skin burning under the tropical sun. Making matters worse, the ‘mahouts’ (elephant keepers) brought in from Thailand were using brutal methods to keep the animals in check.

Nigel and Yanie rescued 19 elephants from Way Kambas and gave them a new home in Bali at Mason Elephant Park & Lodge, the only elephant park in Indonesia certified as an elephant rescue centre by Asian Captive Elephant Standards (ACES), a non-government regulatory body based in Thailand.

Fortunately, things have also improved for the elephants at Way Kambas, according to Nigel, who assessed video footage I captured at Way Kambas and sent him for assessment.

“It looks nothing like the disaster zone we saw at Way Kambas 20 or 30 years ago, that’s for sure,” he says.

“I see no reason to doubt that it’s improved and that is thanks in part to year after year of pressure from people like us who’ve worked tirelessly to change the government’s attitude and force them to get their act together.

“Many of the mahouts at Way Kambas have worked at our park where we taught them how to treat elephants with kindness and respect.”

Deddy, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, is among the new breed of expertly trained mahouts now working at Way Kambas.

His pride and joy is Camilla, a fully grown female elephant who was brought to the park 20 years ago after someone shot her front left foot, leaving the animal crippled. Camilla was operated on at the small elephant hospital in the park and can now walk without pain, though because of her injury, she cannot return to the wild as she would not survive.

“Why was she shot? By who? I don’t know. Some people are just evil,” Deddy says, caressing Camilla’s ears as she lifts her trunk to my face so I could give her a good scratch.

“Then why do you chain her?” I ask, pointing at the chain connecting Camilla’s front legs.

“To make sure she doesn’t run and hurt anyone in case a passing driver beeps his horn or someone makes a loud noise,” he explains.

Information on the website of ACES corroborates these claims, stating that tethering captive elephants while they eat, sleep, are not in the company of their mahouts or in volatile environments like the grassy area surrounding the car park where Camilla likes to spend her grazing.

From there our guide Jeffrey walked us to the main captivity area, where most of the 35 captive elephants at Way Kambas live (there are also an estimated 250 wild elephants living in the wild in the park, some of which we saw grazing peacefully in the distance).

There are several big dams there where the elephants bathe, and where tourists can wash elephants for a small fee in addition to the $18 entry ticket.

Elephant riding at Way Kambas was discontinued last year. However, new research by the Center of Elephant and Wildlife Health Research at Chiang Mai University in Thailand and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute has shown riding elephants is not only harmless but beneficial to captive elephants.

“In captivity, where elephants may not have the same need to walk long distances to acquire food and water, daily exercise becomes paramount,” reads a summary of the research by ACES.

“In fact, in a related study by Norkaew et al in 2018 it was found that exercise in the form of riding was associated with lower stress hormones and healthier metabolic profiles.”

After watching the elephants bathe, we are led to a big field where about two dozen animals, including several babies and calves, are interacting with their mahouts. Tourists are not allowed inside the field and can only observe from a platform.

I could not help but focus my attention on one male elephant who had three of his four legs chained to a cement block and could hardly move. He was obviously uncomfortable and trying to free itself from the restraints. I demand to know why.

“That elephant is on heat,” Jeffrey explains. “He must be chained because otherwise he would attack every male elephant near him and could charge at us and kill us. It’s not all the time, only during the mating season, which is one month yearly.”

It is easy to come to a place like Way Kambas in a poor country like Indonesia, cast judgement on everything and accuse the mahouts of animal cruelty. But without a thorough understanding of elephant biology and psychology, which very few of us possess, it makes more sense to ask questions, learn and contribute positively to the debate.

“Way Kambas is now the showpiece of elephant conservation in Indonesia,” Nigel says.

“It’s so much better now as it has much better funding, and thank goodness for that.”