Surviving in an elephant dominated landscape is challenging to farmers. A single raid by a herd lays waste an entire season of cropping. If that is not enough, elephant movement through these farmlands also lead to infrequent, but considerable damage to village property, including the very homes of people. In yet other cases, these direct interactions between humans and elephants result in the loss of lives on both sides. Human-elephant conflict is a direct risk to the lives and livelihood of villagers and elephants alike.

Life for elephants is equally challenging. The loss of wild habitat and the infrastructural development along corridors that have been their migratory routes for centuries have forced elephant herds to meander. With shortage of foraging grounds, croplands become the better and easier alternative. Since these villages are on the fringes of constantly shrinking forests, elephants, as intelligent as they are and with their strong senses, do their best to exploit the opportunity.

Humans and wildlife have co-existed for eons. The need for mitigation measures today are driven by our uncontrolled “development”, resulting in rapid loss of elephant habitat and connectiviey, polluted rivers and depleted natural resources. With a change in migratory routes, it’s the fringe dwellers that have been at the forefront of these conflicts, either suffering economic damage, getting killed or incapacitated for life.

But both need to survive. For long, humans have been trying to adapt and over generations, have gathered the skills to stay one step ahead in these conflict situations. It’s an ecological arms race where the elephants, though being highly adaptive, always fall behind. As many as 539 of them have died between 2019 and 2014, in such conflict situations, across top nine elephant bearing states in India, as recorded by Project Elephant.

Mitigating Human Elephant conflict in Greater Manas

According to Mr. Dharanidhar Boro, Retired DCF of Manas Tiger Reserve, there is always a way to ensure that no party suffers. “It just takes a little bit of empathy and a great deal of alertness”.

In Greater Manas, the problems have only begun. Unlike some other places in Assam that have a high rate of both elephant and human deaths resulting from HEC, we simply couldn’t afford to wait and witness the same in Greater Manas, a landscape that has just been brought under protection. But, back in 2020, 6 elephants got electrocuted and this was the first time that the gentle giants were at the receiving end at such a scale in this landscape. “It was a clear sign that something was awry, something rapidly changing in the landscape. It was for these reasons that Wildlife Trust of India partnered up with the Bodoland Territorial Council, the Assam Forest Department and Chester Zoo to initiate the Assam Haathi project, as a part of its Greater Manas Recovery Programme”, says Dr. Mayukh Chatterjee, Program Manager of Chester Zoo.

A collaborative effort – Friendships across fences

Having a linear edge on its southern boundary, and without any signs of historical elephant corridors, the entire 24 kilometre edge of the 1^st Addition to Manas National Park needed fencing. This is a relatively newly annexed elephant habitat, based on extensive consultation with local people on their desired solution to reduce HEC. 11 kilometres of this is a hanging solar powered fence and the remaining 13 kilometres is guarded by the commonly used single strand fence. according to Mr. Sanatan Deka, the project lead of WTI, “while these fences don’t completely block passage but only offer a negative stimulus, using solar charge, elephants seem to have quickly learned the new interaction. Our data shows that almost 70% of the attempts made by elephants to cross are deterred, but more importantly the 30% cases that still end up crossing, do not damage the fence extensively.”

Another special thing about these fences is the way it is managed and repaired if they do get damaged. WTI and Chester Zoo had provided the initial financial support but it was the villagers who had taken it on themselves to learn the technology and erect the entire stretch themselves. They even regularly maintain it through trained maintenance volunteers who are supported by the entire set of benefitting villages through fence management committees (FMC) constituted under the project. These FECs have been formed in 54 such villages and they carry the responsibility to collect funds and arrange the labour to ensure that these fences are kept working seamlessly. This in turn directly protects 8198 households near the Manas National Park and the First Addition to Manas NP. WTI only intervenes when there is a technical requirement or a stark lack of funds for repairs. Groups like the Borpathar Anchalik Haathi Surakhsa Committee and Joy Baba Loknath Haathi Surakhsa Committee work hard for fence maintenance and have been duly recognised for their efforts by the State Forest Department.

Alongside, the project is also training interested villagers to be a part of a Haathi Watchers (Baba Bandhu as they are known locally) teams. These volunteers, once trained, will be able to peacefully drive elephants back to the forests, especially in those rare instances when they do breach the fence. Consequently, they are taught techniques of individual elephant identification, reading elephant behaviour and moods, simple precautions that can prevent unwanted encounters as well as strategies to peacefully drive them away from crop fields and villages, back into the forests. These volunteers are also equipped with basic patrolling gear including shoes and flashlights.

Human elephant conflict is nothing new but what is new is the escalated rate. While people need to constantly learn new ways to co-exist, we also need to push our governments to adopt policies that are environment friendly. Wildlife and wild habitats should be given a priority in our developmental plans here on. Until then, we can only slow down the ticking of the bomb.

To read more about WTI’s Assam Haathi Project Project, click here.

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Madhumay Mallik is passionate about photography, travel and documenting his exploits, not necessarily in that order. He is an enthusiastic member of our Communications team, raring to travel and document stories from our field projects.