By Anna Beech

An amazing woman called Lek established the Elephant Nature Park (ENP) over 10 years ago with Adam Flinn. Despite extreme financial difficulties, she succeeded in founding ENP which rescues abused elephants and rehabilitates them on its 50-hectare plot in Northern Thailand, near the city of Chiang Mai.

By Mikael Castro

In Cambodia, we got in touch with Andrea Ross, who runs Journey’s Within, an acclaimed operator in Southeast Asia that offers customized tours. Andrea’s reputation and expertise has been recognized internationally; for the past 5 years she has been listed in Wendy Perrin Travel Specialist List, published by Condé Nast Traveler.

By Cindy Fan

Internet connectivity is recognized as a world development indicator and is closely related to a country’s economic development and infrastructure. This is why projects like the Tadlo Computer Education Center are so vital to Laos, a developing nation. If you’re visiting Tad Lo waterfall on the Bolaven Plateau in Salavan province, southern Laos, pay a visit to the TCEC, a development project and local initiative that offers free computer training and English lessons to local students of Ban Sane Vang village.

By Anja Lorscher

The way Bloom Microventures, in Soc Son, Vietnam, combines tourism with microfinance is extremely innovative. Compared to numerous microfinance institutions, Bloom’s unique model of cross-subsidising microfinance operations with income generated through tourism enables the organisation to have a far greater social impact.

By Oshin Chin

Malaysia is a hard-to-rival ecotourism destination. And now, through a combination of charismatic animal species and government programs to protect them, several areas of Malaysia have found a way to regulate and harness tourism as a positive force for animal conservation. Whether it’s dolphins, monkeys, turtles or elephants you’re hoping to encounter (and maybe even help), Malaysia is the place to be.

By Cindy Fan

In Laos, former logging elephants have found new employment and a healthy, peaceful life at camps such as The Elephant Village, 15 kilometres outside of Luang Prabang. At its stunning location overlooking the Nam Khan River, visitors can get up close and personal with Asian elephants, the planet’s second-largest land animal, whose mass is surpassed only by the African elephant. Travellers learn that despite an elephant’s hefty size, it is a remarkably gentle, sensitive and agile creature.

Maliau Basin is one of the world’s finest remaining wilderness areas. It encompasses over 390 square kilometres of pristine rainforest in the south-central part of Sabah, Borneo, in Malaysia. The rainforest is so dense that less than 50 percent of it has ever been explored. Today, the Maliau is awaiting UNESCO World Heritage Site status, which would help with conservation efforts.

By Shelley Seale

Three decades after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, its legacy remains: over 30% of Cambodia’s population is under age 14 and uneducated. Nearly all of these post genocidal-era children work or beg in the streets rather than attend school. Without proper education this cycle of poverty cannot be broken and the suffering merely gets passed from generation to generation. That’s something that Ponheary Ly wants to end – with the help of an Austin, Texas-based nonprofit called Windows of Wonder Institute (WOWi).

By Melanie Jae Martin

If you want to see great apes in the wild, Sumatra’s rainforest is one of the most accessible places to do just that. However, you need to know how to visit them responsibly or you could introduce illnesses, since they share over 97 percent of our DNA. Less than 7,000 Sumatran orangutans live in the wild, and they’re an essential part of the rainforest ecosystem, helping seeds to germinate and even pruning the canopy.

Borneo is home to the Rungus people, one of the island’s few remaining indigenous ethnic groups who reside in the area surrounding the former capital of Kudat. Organisations like Borneo Ecotourism Solutions and Technologies (BEST) Society help the indigenous Rungus people harness the power of tourism to maintain their vibrant performing arts, customs and traditions. To this day the Rungus live in longhouses, which are extended single-floor structures elevated off the ground on stilts and are designed with an emphasis on community.