Rangamati is a hill district surrounded by green hills and Kaptai Lake. Many species of wild animals live across its wide hills, and the forest is their only home. But as the shortage of food in the forest grows, wild animals have started coming into villages in search of food, damaging crops and homes. Residents are fed up with the rampage.

Wild elephant attacks have recently increased in various parts of Kaptai upazila in Rangamati, according to reports. They often come into villages and harm people and property. Some time ago a student in Kaptai was killed in a wild elephant attack, and within a few days several more people were injured in elephant attacks. At the same time, monkeys have become a growing nuisance at homes next to several hilly areas of Kaptai.

Udayan Tanchangya, a farmer living in Kaptai, said: "Troops of monkeys often come down to our homes. They are destroying the fruit on our trees and our crops. We are fed up with the monkeys."

Sunayan Chakma, another farmer in Chandraghona, said: "We work very hard on our gardens. But the monkeys are eating and ruining beans, papaya, custard apple, guava, bananas and other fruit."

Cheching Marma, also fed up with the monkeys, said: "The monkeys are not only eating crops and fruit. They move about on the roofs of our houses in such a way that our tin roofs are being damaged."

Wild elephants have become another source of fear. Chingla U Marma of Raikhali union said: "Every few days wild elephants come down here. They break our houses and sometimes even kill people. A wild elephant attacked and killed my cousin last year."

Another resident, Joy Sen Tanchangya, said: "A girl from the house next to mine went out at night to use the toilet and was killed in a wild elephant attack. Now elephants often get into the area, and we are losing lives and property."

Forest experts believe wild animals are rampaging in villages because the forest no longer provides a place for them to live. Not finding enough food in the forest, they come into villages. The situation is caused in particular by tree felling, indiscriminate burning inside forests and the building of houses in forests, and biodiversity is increasingly under threat.

Abu Sufian, Kaptai range officer of the Chittagong Hill Tracts South Forest Division, told Jagonews: "Wild animals are our country's wealth. Their home is the forest, but they are coming into villages because of a food shortage. Even so, wild animals must not be killed or injured. If a person is killed or injured, or a house is damaged, by a wild animal, there is a government provision for compensation. When we get news of any damage, we try to pay compensation straight away. The forest belongs to the wild animals, and they must not be harmed in any way."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.