GUWAHATI:
Farmers in Bhutan and India have a tendency to go away their croplands fallow, fearing raids by elephants pushed out of their pure habitats owing to anthropogenic or human-caused actions.
Information on farmers on the Indian facet of the boundary between the 2 international locations abandoning their fields will not be obtainable. A report in Trumpet, a quarterly journal of the Wildlife Institute of India, mentioned 30% of their counterparts in Bhutan go away their land fallow, fearing crop injury.
The report cites a 2024 examine revealing the dimensions of the problem in Bhutan’s Sarpang Forest Division, the place greater than 40% of the households reported experiencing human-elephant conflicts (HEC).
“Alarmingly, 30% of farmers go away their land fallow, fearing crop injury. Elephants primarily raid maize and paddy, that are essentially the most broadly cultivated crops, however money crops like areca nut, oranges, ginger, and cardamom have additionally been focused. The cultivated space for maize and paddy was massive as in comparison with different crops, ensuing within the most incidence of crop raiding by elephants,” the report mentioned.
The authors of the report are Ugyen Tshering, an officer at Bhutan’s Jomotsangkha Wildlife Sanctuary; Sonali Ghosh, the Director of Kaziranga Nationwide Park and Tiger Reserve; and Rupali Thakur and Anukul Nath of the Assam Forest Division.
In line with its nationwide elephant survey in 2016, Bhutan has an estimated 678 elephants primarily inhabiting the southern foothills bordering Assam and West Bengal. Whereas these animals are integral to the area’s biodiversity, their presence more and more comes at a price to native communities, with HEC inflicting financial pressure and social stress, significantly for farmers in southern Bhutan.
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“Farmers in Sarpang have noticed a gentle rise in elephant incursions, a pattern possible pushed by forest degradation and fragmentation, which push elephants into human-dominated areas. But, a major variety of battle incidents stay unreported,” the report says.
One of many elements behind under-reporting is alleged to be non secular beliefs rooted in Bhutanese tradition, which encourage compassion towards wildlife.
“Native communities in Sarpang have predominantly relied on conventional mitigation measures, together with maintaining evening vigils, making hearth, and beating drums. Nonetheless, many farmers view electrical fencing as the best resolution,” the report says, mentioning that solely 0.65% of the affected farmers in Sarpang may afford electrical fences.
In comparison with their counterparts in Bhutan, extra farmers in India – particularly Assam’s Bodoland Territorial Area (BTR) – are choosing electrical or solar-powered fences and bio-fences, which contain rising “elephant-repellent” money crops equivalent to lemon and chilli round rice and vegetable fields. The examine attributes this to assist from native governments and NGOs.
Regional smooth diplomacy
HEC leads to about 300 human and 200 elephant deaths in India yearly, other than injury to about 15,000 homes and 8-10 million hectares of crops. One of many main crucial stretches is alongside the BTR-Bhutan border, greater than 250 km lengthy.
Through the late Nineteen Eighties, present-day BTR skilled a extreme socio-political disaster arising out of the Bodoland statehood motion, devastating the infrastructure of the area and inflicting large-scale destruction of the wildlife and its habitat, particularly the Chirang-Ripu Elephant Reserve and the adjoining Manas Tiger Reserve.
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The extent of the injury was evident from the jap a part of this panorama in 2009, when 14 folks and 10 elephants died in conflicts.
The examine requires selling “regional smooth diplomacy by selling multi-stakeholder teams such because the Trans-boundary Manas Conservation Space, a Bhutan-India collaborative initiative established in 2011 to deal with protected areas and organic corridors alongside the border between the 2 international locations.
The examine advocates exploring and implementing a wide range of neighborhood and household-based safety measures, together with cooperative crop guarding and fencing. “Creating consciousness and educating communities on the significance of elephant conservation ought to be initiated by officers from protected areas and different environmental and academic businesses,” it says.
It additionally underlines capability constructing and legislation enforcement. “The officers and native groups on either side of the border might be collectively educated to implement the legislation and in addition keep related databases. Unlawful actions that end in elephant mortality might be prevented by such joint enforcement,” the examine says.
Printed – June 29, 2025 12:24 pm IST
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