Conflict Corridor

Assam8217;s forests are shrinking and the toll on both sides rises as man and elephants square off for survival

Every evening, Saurabh Lahkar, an electrical engineer turned tea planter, invokes Lord Ganesha fervently. He8217;s hardly the god-fearing type but over the years, he8217;s learnt to make a ritual out of necessity. When herds of wild elephants raze his tea garden, nothing short of divine intervention, he says, will do to save his skin.

But Lahkar and his neighbours will need more than prayers to avert the growing man-elephant conflict in this corridor. 8220;A herd of about 80 elephants has been around here for over five years now,8221; says Lahkar, whose Lakshmi tea estate is among dozens of big and small tea estates in Golaghat district in Upper Assam, regular territory for marauding elephants in search of food. 8220;You are simply helpless when a herd of elephants surrounds your house. Villagers blow horns, beat drums and burst crackers but these don8217;t work all the time and those who fall in their path get trampled,8221; says Lahkar.

Golaghat is only one example of the growing fight for survival and space that is claiming lives by the hundreds every year. Casualties are a daily staple for newspapers and as the paddy harvest season nears completion, the toll is mounting.

Sunset signals fear in the region as herds roam in search of food. Across villages and tea gardens, close to elephant corridors and shrinking forests, people stay awake all night, prepared to flee in case a herd goes on the rampage.

Last week, an eight-year-old was crushed to death at Bihuguri in Sonitpur district while two woodcutters were killed at Salona in Nagaon. Two weeks ago, two labourers of the Bukiyal tea estate were trampled upon by a herd; a 60-year-old man was killed in Bhalukjuri, on the fringes of the Kaziranga National Park. Forest officials say wild elephants have killed at least a dozen people in the state in November.

That, is one side of the problem.

8220;People being trampled to death by wild elephants has become common news but more alarming is the fact that wild elephants are getting killed at the same rate,8221; says Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, secretary-general of Aaranyak, an NGO connected with the issue. Villagers are known to have poisoned elephants to death or dug trenches in their paths to trap them.

At least 240 people have been trampled to death by wild elephants in Assam since 2001 while official records put the number of wild elephants killed at an alarming 265 in the same period.

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8220;The situation has been particularly bad in Golaghat district and the shrinking of habitat and destruction of natural corridors are two main reasons behind this,8221; says Talukdar. In Golaghat, the forest cover has shrunk to an alarming fraction, says Arup Ballav Goswami, honorary wildlife warden of the district. 8220;The Nambor reserved forest which originally had an area of 42,650 hectares is today left with hardly 9,650 hectares,8221; says Goswami, a member of the Wildlife Advisory Board, Assam. Goalpara and Sonitpur districts trail close behind. 8220;Degradation and fragmentation of habitat and reduction of forest cover due to human encroachment have all resulted in shortage of food for the elephants,8221; says MC Malakar, chief wildlife warden of the state.

8220;Elephants migrate seasonally by nature and follow a definite route while moving in search of food. These routes were once free of human interference and pillaging which is not the case now,8221; Talukdar points out. 8220;Granting permission to remove stones by blasting rocks from a quarry inside the Karbi Anglong-Kaziranga Elephant Reserve two years ago had caused irreparable damage to one such elephant corridor.8221;