A village on Nepal’s border with India has discovered a solution to scale back conflicts with wild Asian elephants lately: By switching their crops from rice and maize, which elephants like to eat, to tea and lemon, the farmers of Bahundangi are actually seeing fewer elephants devouring their harvest, Mongabay contributor Deepak Adhikari reported in January.

This transformation in crops, mixed with a shift in group attitudes towards elephants, and authorities insurance policies like higher entry to compensation, has meant the villagers now reside extra peacefully with wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) than a decade in the past. The final human fatality recorded there was in 2015.

Prior to now, elephants would roam your entire 900-kilometer (560-mile) east-west hall of Nepal’s southern plains, consuming meals from the wealthy flood plains of the Koshi, Gandaki and Karnali rivers. Nonetheless, with folks migrating to the world and roads and infrastructure being constructed, the hall turned more and more fragmented.

Bahundangi, which lies within the hall, used to ceaselessly see homes and fields trampled by the elephants, with the battle ensuing within the deaths of 20 elephants between 2012 and 2022.

Adhikari reported that villagers would try and thrust back elephants, however this solely served to additional agitate the animals and led to them attacking folks.

Shankar Luitel, an area conservationist, informed Adhikari that an electrical fence constructed by the federal government in 2015 with help from the World Financial institution had helped scale back crop injury, however the elephants nonetheless discovered methods to avoid it.

In 2009, Nepal’s authorities launched a coverage via which villagers have been capable of get compensation from losses and injury to property brought on by wildlife. Native official Arjun Karki stated the transfer helped ease resentment towards elephants. Nonetheless, many farmers had problem with the method, prompting Luitel to step in and assist fill out kinds, particularly for illiterate residents.

However the sport changer was the introduction of elephant-resistant farming to the village, Adhikari reported. Karki led efforts to encourage farmers to shift away from rice and maize and as an alternative plant crops that elephants don’t eat: tea, bay leaf and lemons.

“It was onerous at first,” farmer Diwakar Neupane informed Mongabay. “However now I’ve a secure earnings, and I not fear about elephants consuming my crops.” The shift not solely helped the farmers diversify their earnings sources but additionally addressed farming challenges corresponding to water shortages and labor shortage.

Karki stated the farmers have additionally began beekeeping, since bees are a pure repellent for elephants. “We’re encouraging farmers to domesticate mustard, which attracts bees and helps beekeeping initiatives,” Karki stated, including that the mustard additionally supplies further earnings.

Moreover, group volunteers now patrol the world to information elephants away from the village, in order that residents keep protected.

It is a abstract of “How a Nepali border village discovered to reside with migratory wild elephants” by Deepak Adhikari.

Banner picture of elephant statues in Bahundangi, Nepal. Picture by Deepak Adhikari.