Wild elephants raise havoc

JHAPA, May 9: For well over two decades, the residents of Bahundangi, in Jhapa, have had to live with the menace of marauding elephants from forests across the border in India. Since 1981, a dozen villagers have lost their lives to attacks by these wild elephants. So what´s the village to do? [break]



The District Development Committee of Jhapa has created a separate budget to control this elephant terror, but so far the money spent in containing the elephants has not produced significant deterrence.



The village of Bahundangi has already spent more than Rs 5 million from the budget: of this, Rs 3.4 million has been spent in digging trenches and building electric barbwire fences to restrict the elephants from entering the farmlands and village areas. Last year, a 5.3 km-long electric barbwire fence was installed at the Nepal-India border to stop the elephants, but the locals are certain that even this is not going to be of any help.



Since none of these methods have worked, the locals have now thought of changing their game-plan; instead of continuing to set up barbwire fences, they want to grow rows of a plant called the elephant fence (agave).



“This plant is thorny and strong and can stop the elephants. But it is very costly and the process of setting up an agave fence is very time consuming,” says Nilkantha Tiwari, president of the barbwire construction committee.



The locals are also proposing that the Indian jungle be turned into a wildlife reserve so that the Indian elephants are contained there.



“That would be the best option, but it can only happen if India wants it,” says Tiwari.

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