A village on Nepal’s border with India has discovered a strategy to cut back conflicts with wild Asian elephants lately: By switching their crops from rice and maize, which elephants like to eat, to tea and lemon, the farmers of Bahundangi at the moment are seeing fewer elephants devouring their harvest, Mongabay contributor Deepak Adhikari reported in January.
This modification in crops, mixed with a shift in neighborhood attitudes towards elephants, and authorities insurance policies like higher entry to compensation, has meant the villagers now reside extra peacefully with wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) than a decade in the past. The final human fatality recorded there was in 2015.
Up to now, elephants would roam all the 900-kilometer (560-mile) east-west hall of Nepal’s southern plains, consuming meals from the wealthy flood plains of the Koshi, Gandaki and Karnali rivers. Nonetheless, with folks migrating to the realm and roads and infrastructure being constructed, the hall turned more and more fragmented.
Bahundangi, which lies within the hall, used to ceaselessly see homes and fields trampled by the elephants, with the battle ensuing within the deaths of 20 elephants between 2012 and 2022.
Adhikari reported that villagers would try to ward off elephants, however this solely served to additional agitate the animals and led to them attacking folks.
Shankar Luitel, an area conservationist, informed Adhikari that an electrical fence constructed by the federal government in 2015 with help from the World Financial institution had helped cut back crop injury, however the elephants nonetheless discovered methods to avoid it.
In 2009, Nepal’s authorities launched a coverage by means of which villagers had been in a position to get compensation from losses and injury to property brought on by wildlife. Native official Arjun Karki mentioned the transfer helped ease resentment in opposition to elephants. Nonetheless, many farmers had problem with the method, prompting Luitel to step in and assist fill out varieties, particularly for illiterate residents.
However the recreation changer was the introduction of elephant-resistant farming to the village, Adhikari reported. Karki led efforts to encourage farmers to shift away from rice and maize and as a substitute plant crops that elephants don’t eat: tea, bay leaf and lemons.
“It was onerous at first,” farmer Diwakar Neupane informed Mongabay. “However now I’ve a steady revenue, and I not fear about elephants consuming my crops.” The shift not solely helped the farmers diversify their revenue sources but in addition addressed farming challenges resembling water shortages and labor shortage.
Karki mentioned the farmers have additionally began beekeeping, since bees are a pure repellent for elephants. “We’re encouraging farmers to domesticate mustard, which attracts bees and helps beekeeping initiatives,” Karki mentioned, including that the mustard additionally supplies extra revenue.
Moreover, neighborhood volunteers now patrol the realm to information elephants away from the village, in order that residents keep protected.
It is a abstract of “How a Nepali border village learned to live with migratory wild elephants” by Deepak Adhikari.
Banner picture of elephant statues in Bahundangi, Nepal. Picture by Deepak Adhikari.
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