Tags:
Journalism of Courage
GUWAHATI, NOV 2: With the onset of winter, wild elephants in Assam are out in the open once again, going on a rampage, destroying standing crops and dwelling houses and also claiming several lives in the past few weeks.
In the districts of Sonitpur and Darrang in northern Assam, wild elephants straying out of their shrinking habitat, have already killed three people, including a woman — she died by falling in a well, after being chased by a herd of pachyderms.
Another person died in Golaghat district in upper Assam, when a herd of wild elephants raided a village near Furkating after straying out from the Nambor reserved forest, near the Kaziranga National Park last week.In Sonitpur, one single herd which had around 150 animals, big and small, came out of the Charduar reserved forest and destroyed standing crops in several villages, apart from uprooting tea bushes in some tea gardens.
Around 30 people, including seven women, have been killed by wild elephants in Sonitpur district during the past two years, official reports say. Incidentally, wild elephants figure third in the list of major killers in Assam after insurgency and malaria. Nearly 200 people have been killed by elephants in the state in the past six years.
The Charduar reserved forest is currently under heavy encroachment and a boundary dispute between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh has added to the problem. Charduar is one forest that lies contiguous to the Arunachal Pradesh forests, which in turn touch the Bhutan foothills on the western side, thus forming an international corridor for the elephants.
There have been reports of elephants from Kaziranga National Park crossing the Brahmaputra and entering Biswanath civil sub-division of Sonitpur district and creating havoc in several villages in the past two weeks. Incidents of villagers being trampled by wild elephants have also been pouring in from Sibsagar and Jorhat districts in upper Assam, as also from Nagaon in central Assam.
Assam, incidentally, is one state that has registered shrinking of forest cover, with the larger animals like elephants and buffaloes bearing the brunt of the destruction of natural habitat. There are approximately 6,000 wild elephants in Assam — the figure fluctuating due to entry of elephants from neighbouring states of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.
Meanwhile, the forest department in collaboration with the Assam Branch Indian Tea Association (ABITA) has devised a scheme to install “solar system barrier” in order to physically prevent wild elephants from entering the tea plantations. The barrier is being installed along a 50 km stretch between Dhekiajuli and Jiabhoroli, with the ABITA chipping in Rs 9 lakh.
The state forest department and the district administration are putting in Rs 4 lakh each for the project worth Rs 13 lakh.
