Survey the events of the past three years, and it’s difficult not to feel hopeless. Natural disasters have leveled entire communities, nations are invading their neighbors, and governments are committing human rights violations with impunity. Is there any hope for our world as we move further into the 21st century?
In spite of difficulties, people all over the world are still trying to make it better. Better for their fellow humans and better for wildlife. It speaks to our humanity that in a seemingly hopeless period, filled with sickness, war, and climate decimation, we still see the possibility of a better future for ourselves and our non-human companions.
Human-Elephant Conflict in Africa
African elephants move through 37 countries on the continent. Both the savannah and forest elephant species are at risk of extinction from a number of threats, including poaching for ivory and meat, lack of food and water, and run-ins with human populations. We’ll look at some of the steps being taken to curb conflict in Africa.
Human-Elephant Conflict: Case Studies
Near Tsavo National Park, in Kenya, villagers and elephants have struggled to find ways to coexist. As elephants run out of food and water, they encroach on crop land looking for sustenance. This threatens villagers’ safety and livelihoods, and often ends in violence. Exodus Travels has established a program called Free to Roam, which reallocates farmland in the Tsavo area, returning 90% of it to the wild and training villagers to farm the remaining 10% more efficiently. They’ve also installed fencing around the remaining farmland, to prevent elephants from eating or trampling the crops, or getting too close to the villagers. This improves the outlook on life for humans while giving their giant pachyderm neighbors a little more room to roam. A win-win, in a time when we are leaning on the small victories to find encouragement.
Landlocked in southern Africa, Botswana has the most elephants of any other country on earth. The Okavango Delta in Botswana has seen both elephant and human populations increase side by side, leading to more interactions that sometimes end in death. One problem is that many villagers need to cross elephant corridors from time to time, which puts them at risk of running into a roaming elephant. Though generally docile, elephants can be conditioned to fear humans after losing another member of the herd to human-elephant conflict. The new Elephant Express ferries villagers across open elephant corridors in buses to reduce run-ins as the villagers travel.
Save the Elephants has established the Elephants & Bees project in 13 African countries. Despite a tough-looking exterior, elephants naturally fear and avoid bees. In areas where elephants are drawn to villages, “beehive fences” not only provide an eco-friendly deterrent to the elephants, but provide an alternative source of income for the villagers. The Mndaka village in Malawi sits in a buffer zone of the Kasungu National Park, which has a dwindling elephant population 59 elephants, down from 1,000 in the 1970s. Approximately 1200 meters of beehive fences have been installed on the border separating the park and the village, with reported success. As further needs arise, more helpers have been willing to make donations to help the project along.
Human-Elephant Conflict in Asia
Fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants remain roaming in 13 countries. They’re subject to the same threats as their African counterparts: poaching, habitat loss, and the resulting conflict with humans. From the majestic Sumatran wild elephants to the domesticated timber elephants of Myanmar, the endangered populations are getting help from humans.
Human-Elephant Conflict: Case Studies
Advances in technology can help with human-elephant conflict, too. A computer scientist in India is hopeful that bioacoustics can safely discourage elephants from coming too close to humans. Seema Lokhandwala founded the Elephant Acoustics Project, which studies how elephants communicate to create strategies for avoiding conflict, hopefully in the long term.
Elephants in Myanmar face increasing conflict with villagers as they struggle to find food and alternative corridors as a result of deforestation. The Elephant Project’s fencing initiative, documented in The Linesman, has contributed to the physical prevention of conflict, but it is only the beginning. The animals still need to be relocated due to deforestation in the area, so more awareness and funding are needed.
In the diplomatic realm, India and Nepal signed a memorandum of understanding on biodiversity to address human-elephant conflict along their shared border. Electric fencing was installed on the banks of the Mecchi river to prevent elephants from crossing the river. However, the electric fencing has resulted in elephant deaths and has pushed elephants to raid neighboring villages. The MoU aims to restore migration corridors, which forestry experts predict will prevent elephants from raiding the villages. The fifth point of the MoU states that bilateral cooperation will also address wildlife trafficking, since information sharing will be expanded.
Far from Asia, in Yulee, Florida, the first herd of Asian elephants have arrived at the White Oak sanctuary after being released from the now-closed Ringling Brothers circus. As we reported in 2020, the ex-circus elephants can never be truly wild again after being subjected to brutal training methods and captivity. However, the facility is giving them the best shot at living out the rest of their lives in a habitat as close to their native one as possible.
From Conflict to Coexistence: Our Hope for 2023
We need elephants. And not just because they are a cornerstone species — it is worth noting entire ecosystems depend on their survival — but because what we let happen to them speaks to our priorities as a human species. There are 8 billion of us on the planet now, but we don’t want to be here alone. And it’s up to us to stop the continued decline of critical animal populations.
As we wrap up the third year of a pandemic, it’s safe to say priorities have been realigned. One priority we should not let slip is to do what we can to help our non-human fellows. This is happening in many parts of the world, in spite of countless obstacles, and that is a reason to remain hopeful.
Elephant Advocate 