Human & Elephants : Conflict & appeasement

Humans and Elephants have co-existed since millennia, but encroachment and degradation of the elephant habitat has created conflict with disastrous consequences. Proliferation of plantations in elephant corridors have resulted in routine clashes with the labourers engaged in them. Injuries caused by human retaliation often lead to further casualties among both parties. Green Guard Nature Organization has been trying to mitigate Human-Elephant Conflict in the bordering areas of Nagaon and Karbi Anglong by various initiatives with the involvement of the victims of elephant depredation. At the same time, the organization is striving to revive some of the age-old bonding between men and beast by stopping the practice of violent retaliation against intruding herds, introducing indigenously developed cost effective Early Warning Systems, hedge fencing, plantation of elephant fodder in areas left barren by the practice of shifting cultivation, encouraging traditional practices like appeasement of elephants by offering prayers, food, etc.

A typical scene in a tea plantation that has come up in a elephant corridor. Hatikhuli, Chapanala, Nagaon, a boy tries to scare the elephant by shouting and waving his stick.

The elephant angrily snatches a fence off the ground, as the boy cowers down.

At another place, in the same HEC affected belt last week, villagers perform Ganeshbhog or Hathipuja, the practice of offering paddy and salt fro appeasement of the elephant Gods.

Children participating in Ganeshbhog at Balijuri, Chapanala, while in the background, women return with firewood collected from the Karbi foothills. Humans do not venture out after dark and elephants roam freely in these areas, so the local belief that a little offering can appease the elephant is encouraged.