A jumbo conflict on India-Nepal border
Nepal has erected an 18-km long fence on the elephant corridor. The elephants are now straying into human habitations on the Indian side, leaving behind a trail of destruction and damage.
It’s a nightmare they cannot quite pass off as a bad dream. Waking up to a deafening noise in the middle of the night, 52-year-old Sher Bahadur Chetri and his wife Khuman Devi of Nepania basti rushed outside with a flickering torch in hand. And froze to the ground. Standing just a few feet away in their backyard was a herd of about eight jumbos including two calves. Trampling all over their maize fields, the elephants were wreaking havoc on the paddy crop as well.
“We don’t remember when we saw something like this here. Elephants never strayed into our villages in the past, but nowadays we keep getting reports every now and then that jumbos have strayed in and destroyed acres and acres of farmland. Our livelihood is solely dependent on these fields, but within a fraction of a second, months of hard work and expectation get washed away,” quips Sher Bahadur pointing to the tell-tale signs of damage all around the lush fields.
A few bylanes away stays Forest Protection Committee member B.K. Sharma. While distributing crackers to villagers in nearby villages and briefing them about the means they need to employ to ward off the elephants, like lighting mashals or torches and bursting crackers, he too is struggling hard to prevent frequent elephant incursions. “The elephants are creating abso- lute mayhem ever since their corridor was blocked. They are now venturing into areas where they have never come before. The problem is getting amplified by the day. Unless the government addresses this issue now, it will be a complete disaster,” he says.
The epicentre of the problem lies some 5-km away in Nepal. Along the Mechi river, which separates India and Nepal along the Kolabari forest zone of north Bengal, an 18km long energised fence has been set up to thwart the entry of elephants into Nepal’s territory. Pushed back by Nepal, the jumbos are now walking for miles at a stretch in search of food and shelter. Leaving behind a trail of destruction and damage all along.
Wildlife activist Sandip Sarkar of Nature Help Organization, which works closely with the West Bengal Forest Department, rings the alarm bells. “Nepal’s move to erect the energised fence is spelling absolute disaster for our border villagers. And why talk of border villages alone? Elephant herds are now venturing deep inside areas where they have never ventured be-