Sreebardi and Jhenaigati upazilas of Sherpur lie along the Indian border. Every evening, herds of wild elephants come down from the Garo hills into the villages in search of food. Thirty to forty elephants roam together, destroying crops in various villages, and sometimes two or three herds come down from the hills. Farmers spend sleepless nights.

Farmers say they have faced this problem year after year. Wildlife experts say the forest is shrinking as more of it falls into the hands of encroachers, leaving the elephants short of food, so they are forced to come out of the deep forest onto the plains.

According to the forest department and local sources, several herds have been staying for about one and a half to two months at Sandhyakura, Haldigram, Gumra and Rangtia in Nalkura union and Chhotogajni, Borogajni and Tawakucha in Kangsha union of Jhenaigati upazila, at Balijuri and Officepara in Sreebardi upazila, and in parts of Poragaon and Nayabil unions in Nalitabari upazila. By day they roam the hillocks, but as evening falls they enter the villages.

At Sandhyakura, the elephants were seen coming into rose and acacia (akashmoni) timber plantations, vegetable fields and paddy land. Local people try to drive them off with torches and noise, but cannot prevent crop damage.

Md Delwar, a farmer in Sandhyakura village, said: "The herd has destroyed 25 decimals of my paddy land. I am a poor man, struggling to run my household. We are fed up with the elephants. We want a solution."

Akbar Ali, a farmer in Gumra village of Nalkura union, said: "Elephants have destroyed my yardlong bean and aubergine fields. I have seen big and small elephants with my own eyes. The crop damage is huge and we are very worried."

Anwar Hossain, a farmer in the same village, said: "It is true that the elephants face a shortage of food and shelter in the Garo hills. But they break our houses and destroy our crops. The local Elephant Response Team must be made more effective."

Those concerned say the jungle is being destroyed in a planned way, creating a shortage of both roaming space and food for the elephants in the Garo hills. The result is visible in the border villages: made strangers in their own land, the elephants come down in search of food, and that is when trouble starts.

Wildlife rights activist Kanchan Mister Marak said: "For a long time, a particular area of the Garo hills was the elephants' range. But intruders are clearing the forest, including valuable gajari trees, in many ways. The elephants are becoming strangers in their own land. As the forest shrinks, they often come into villages looking for food."

Wildlife rights activist Syeda Onnanno Faria said: "The forest department and the government have been paying cash subsidies to compensate farmers whose crops are damaged by wild elephants. This year Ziaul Haque, a farmer at Shomoschura in Nalitabari, received a Tk 40,000 subsidy. Even so, he set an electric trap of GI wire in his paddy field to kill elephants. On the night of 20 March this year an elephant died after getting caught in that electrified GI wire at Shomoschura. This land was once deep forest. People came from different places and settled on forest land, so the forest gradually shrank and the elephants ran short of living space. The government must take effective steps quickly."

Mugniur Rahman Moni, executive director of the environmental organisation SHINE, told Jago News: "A ring has deliberately set out to kill elephants with GI wire powered by generators and direct electricity, so that the elephants quickly disappear from this forest (the Garo hills). As a result, elephants are killed every year. This ring must be traced through intelligence surveillance and punished. The forest department must also take effective, active awareness measures for people in the area. If not, the forest's elephants will soon be lost. Without elephants this forest will also be lost, and the environment will face a severe disaster."

Abdul Karim, Rangtia range officer of the Mymensingh forest department, said Sufal plantations have been created in the Garo hills to ease the elephants' food shortage. "This month a programme is under way to plant 2,000 banana plants in each beat. When these grow, the elephants' food shortage will ease considerably. At the same time the forest department and the ERT are working round the clock to send elephants back to the hills. The good news is that human-elephant conflict has already come down."

Md Dewan Ali, Madhutila range officer of the Mymensingh forest department, said cheques had been handed to people in Nalitabari who suffered from wild elephant attacks. On 5 September, cheques were distributed to 36 beneficiaries at the Madhutila range office in Nalitabari upazila, as compensation under the wildlife management and nature conservation law. A total of Tk 6,73,000 was paid to the 36 people. Even so, he said, people come to kill elephants when they see them and set traps in various ways.

Asifuzzaman Prithil, president of Research and Conservation of Elephant Bangladesh, told Jago News: "Land grabbers have taken forest property into their own hands and left the elephants short of space. We demand that everyone involved in killing elephants be arrested and properly punished." He added that under the previous government a solar fencing system was set up at a cost of nearly Tk 1 crore to keep elephants away, but the whole project collapsed within three months of starting.

Wildlife specialist Dr Reza Khan, former principal of Dubai Safari Park, said: "Elephants are very calm animals. But people are harassing the elephants of Sherpur's Garo hills a great deal. As soon as the elephants come down towards the foot of the hills, hundreds of curious people come to watch, throw stones and make noise. The government should draw up and implement a comprehensive national wildlife policy that sets out clear strategies for wildlife conservation, protection and sustainable management."

Sherpur Deputy Commissioner Tarafdar Mahmudur Rahman told Jago News: "The elephants are coming into villages because of a lack of food. We have told people to keep a safe distance. If food for elephants can be ensured in the border area, they will not come down into the villages."

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, adviser to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Ministry of Water Resources, said: "Work had begun on a tourist centre at Dhaodara in Nalitabari, an elephant habitat in the Garo hills. But that place is the elephants' home. We have visited it. There will be no tourist centre there. We are trying to find a permanent solution to the so-called human-elephant conflict in the Garo hills."

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