A
herd of elephants graze on the hills at Poragaon union of Nalitabari
upazila of northern Sherpur. This and two other herds entered several
villages looking for food. The photo was taken recently. Photo: Courtesy
It's a battle for survival.
Loss of habitats and food sources has forced at least three herds of
around 60 to 70 wild elephants of Tangail's Garo hills to march to
adjacent villages in search of food, triggering a conflict with
villagers.
These mega-herbivores, that can consume a year's harvest
in just a few days, are raiding the croplands and gardens of toiling
people of around 60-kilometer area of Nalitabari, Jhenaigati and
Sreebardi upazilas.
According to Sherpur district administration, a
herd of about 15 to 20 wild elephants entered the Garo hills in
Bangladesh from Meghalaya of India's Assam in 1997. They did not go back
as the hills offered them abundant food and habitat.
However,
things started being different as these Elphas maximuses bred and
tripled their number over the past years while men continued to increase
the encroachment on the wildlife habitats.
A highly intelligent species, the elephants are now returning what the humans did to them.
Almost every night, the crop-raiding giants come down the hills and
choose croplands as an easy source for their nutrition. People of the
areas, however, are certainly not glad about this.
"How can we
survive if they (elephants) destroy all our crops?" said a farmer of
Nakugaon village in Sherpur's Nalitabari. The elephants rampaged through
at least 20 acres of rice fields in the village last week.
"We have
stopped doing everything except guarding our farmlands from dusk to
dawn," said Saheb Ali, a farmer of Tarani village of the same upazila.
Hundreds of farmers like him are spending sleepless nights with spears,
torch and sticks to protect their only source of livelihood from these
largest land mammals that too are badly in need of food.
Worse
still, the villagers fear for their lives every day as more than 50
people were killed by the marauding elephants in the past 17 years,
according to the district administration.
Both the number of the
elephants and the people of the area have multiplied since 1994. An
ever-increasing population is destroying the habitats and grazing zones
of the elephants, forcing the giants to raid the villages, says local
green activist Mannan Sohel.
The wild elephants cannot return to the
forests of Meghalaya either as India has erected barbed fences on the
border, say local foresters.
In a desperate bid to rid themselves of
elephant attacks, locals want electricity connection to the villages
immediately, as elephants fear light at night, Mokhlesur Rahman,
chairman of Sherpur's Nalitabari upazila parishad, told The Daily Star.
Zakir Hossain, deputy commissioner (DC) of Sherpur, however, said the
administration was working to find a way to ensure peaceful coexistence
of the elephants and humans.
“The lives of the wild elephants are
valuable but the lives of people are more valuable. Though it is tough
to ensure a peaceful co-existence, measures are being taken to save
both,” he said.
Different organisations, with the help of local
administration, are conducting awareness programmes among the locals to
keep them from harming the animals.
When asked about the demand of
the environmentalists to create a sanctuary for the endangered species
in the area, the DC said, “Where will I shift the people then?" -- a
question that reveals a disturbing picture of the severely damaged
equilibrium of nature; a question that has no easy answer.
