How elephants invaded my childrens' school |Kavitha Rao

Heard of "the dog ate my homework" excuse? A few weeks ago, my children had an even better excuse. Their school in Bangalore was shut for the day, after being taken over by a herd of 15 wild elephants. The panicked pachyderms moved into Bangalore's plush IT district of Whitefield, as neighbouring schools and offices hastily shut down, and a massive crowd of onlookers gathered. But much as the children enjoyed it, the incursion masked deeper, graver problems. The herd ended up killing four people- including a journalist trying to take photographs-before they were finally cornered by forest officials and driven back to the jungle. Elephant-man conflicts have become increasingly common in India. Previously, most of these conflicts took place in villages bordering forests. Now, elephants are straying into cities. This week, a herd of 11 elephants wandered into a stadium in the city of Rourkela in eastern India. An estimated 300 people are killed by elephants every year in India, and casualties on the other side are almost equally heavy. But experts say the reasons for increased conflict aren't always as straightforward as they seem. "It's really not as simple as saying we have invaded their habitat, though that's certainly part of the reason," says Dr Raman Sukumar, an ecologist who has spent over 30 years studying elephants. "Elephants in many parts of the country have been driven out because of the destruction of forests, unregulated mining, and severe drought. But in other parts, such as in the state of Karnataka, (of which Bangalore is the capital), elephants have developed a taste for crops. Some of our actions in improving patches outside forests with social forestry (a government scheme where trees are planted on barren land) have ironically lured elephants out of the forests. The elephant population has also gone up sharply, following wildlife protection measures, and existing habitats in Southern India are saturated. That doesn't mean we stop forestation or protecting the elephant, but we need to have a plan to separate elephants and man." Following repeated attacks, Sukumar, and a group of ecologists, were asked by the government to come up with exactly that sort of plan. In September 2012, the Elephant Task Force submitted a report which tried to strike a balance between elephants and man, recommending cordoning off areas for elephants, men, and one where both man and elephant could coexist. It also recommended fences, the relocation and compensation of villagers in elephant prone areas, and in extreme cases, the capture and rearing of elephants in captivity. Sukumar talks feelingly of the plight of subsistence villagers caught between the elephant and conservationists. "Village farmers say 'You only care about elephant attacks in cities. No one cares about us.' In the Alur village of rural Karnataka, which has been taken over by a small herd of elephants, children often can't go to school, and people refuse to go outside after dark. Crops have been decimated." The villagers of Alur recently pleaded for help against the elephant "menace" , blaming unregulated mining for the destruction of habitats. In the Bandipur forest of Karnataka, nearly 30,000 villages have been coaxed to switch to cooking gas, rather than go into elephant areas to gather firewood. But attitudinal changes like these are hard to make. Villages also need to stop growing monoculture plantations such as teak and coffee, which displace elephant food, say conservationists. In extreme cases such as Alur, Sukumar recommends a controversial solution: trapping and keeping elephants in captivity. "Relocation of elephants is often extremely difficult, because they simply wander back to where they began. And in the case of Alur, where only a few elephants are involved, conservation is economically unviable." But some observers disagree with this; members of the task force wrote a dissenting report saying rearing elephants in captivity was impractical. This week, the Karnataka government agreed to implement most of the Task Force regulations, including setting up fences and restoring elephant corridors. But the government has refused to set up a new wildlife panel to oversee elephants, saying the existing State Wildlife Board can do the job just as well. As Sukumar points out, that body only meets once or twice a year. Like most things in India, drafting policy is one thing. Actually making it work is another. What's certain is that the government needs to act now. "There's too much dillydallying. We are only reacting because elephants have come to Bangalore and other cities," says Sukumar. "We can't just protect city dwellers and ignore the villages. One day, there will be a huge urban incident, and then people will have to take notice."