Photographer: Maggie Steber

A Nepali mahout rests stop his elephant at the end of a workday in the Dang Distrcit of the Lumbini Province located in the Inner Terai river valleys in the southern lowlands in Nepal. Wild elephants once reigned in part of Nepal in the Terai area but as malaria was eradicated, more people moved from the hill country and into the Terai in a government resettlement program, taking over the natural habitats of the wild elephants. While there is a government-run convservation plan to protect the remaining wild elephants which is a small population at best, most elephants are working elephants, revered nonetheless by their mahout owners.