Elephants at a protection zone in Yunnan Province. Photo: CFP

 

A villager looks through a smashed window at his house, about two hours away by car from Huashiban village, after elephants raided it. Photo: CFP

Cai Yingsheng will always remember the hideous moment when he discovered that his wife had been trampled to death by an elephant, becoming "a 10-kilogram pile of flesh and bones."

The tragic incident happened on March 13, the Guangzhou-based South Review biweekly reported. That day, when Cai, a resident in Huashiban village in Jiangcheng township, Yunnan Province, came back from the cornfield, he didn't see his wife. That morning she had gone to their coffee bean plantation to spray pesticide.

When Cai went over to the plantation, he at first saw the smashed spraying equipment, with pesticide spilled everywhere. Cai called out to his wife and searched the place. He gradually found half a skull, half an arm, a foot and some other body parts, tens of meters away from the sprayer. Some of the remains were even hanging from trees.

But the tragedy was not yet over. On April 12, another villager was trampled to death by an elephant. Panic penetrated the village, some villagers escaped by taking jobs outside, but old people and terrified children had to stay behind.

Besides escaping, the villagers had no way to deal with the animals, as they are wild Asian elephants, animals under first-class State protection. Around 13 years ago the villagers moved from a faraway location, to make way for black-neck cranes, another protected animal. The villagers refuse to move again, and say the animals are being treated with more care and respect than they are.

The elephants are coming

Jiangcheng is the only township in Yunnan that shares borders with both Laos and Vietnam. It has always been a popular tourist spot. But recently, particularly in the last couple of months, locals are rushing to move away due to the appearance of wild elephants.

On October 18, 2011, 18 wild elephants showed up at Jiangcheng. In 2012, the number increased to 24. This March, there were a total of 43 elephants. The villagers' livelihoods have been threatened because the elephants stomp on crops, steal food and even attack humans.

The Jiangcheng township publicity department informed the South Review that villagers' attitudes have changed from treating the elephants as "guests" to "a certain level of hatred and fear."

Huashiban villager Zhang Wenzhi told the publication that before the elephants came, her family could harvest 5,000 kilograms of corn per year. Now they can only harvest 1,000 kilograms and the rest is eaten by the animals.

Villager Fei Xingwang, who is also an animal monitor, said that the foot sizes of the elephants in the village range from 10 to 37 centimeters. "Every step they took was a big loss, [to crops]" he said.

The effect of the elephants on local agriculture is monstrous. Kong Linghua, director of the village committee, told the publication that 60 percent of local production has been lost. Furthermore, because of the two recent deaths, the villagers are afraid of working in the fields.

The last attack took place on April 12. Villager Zhao Jiayu was removing weeds in his cornfield with his 13-year-old son Zhao Shenggang. He was suddenly attacked by an elephant and died. His son escaped.

"He didn't talk for three days," Zhao Jiayou's wife told the publication. "At night, he often wakes up from his sleep and yells 'The elephants are coming, the elephants are coming!'"

The same fear is growing inside the hearts of adults. Huang Shiren narrowly escaped an elephant attack. He encountered three elephants in his path while riding a motorcycle to a field. In his panic, he jumped off the motorcycle and ran up the hill. The elephant chased him and stomped on his motorcycle.

In May, Huang packed a bag and left for Hunan Province, where his son works. His son fears for his safety, Huang said, and insisted that he leave Huashiban village.

Low compensation

Data from the Jiangcheng township's government shows that from when the elephants entered the area in 2011, to the end of 2013, they caused 10.3 million yuan ($1,739,691) worth of economic losses for the locals.

The local government has responded, but the compensation has fallen far short of the losses. Bai Liangfang, a worker at the township's forestry bureau, told the South Review that the bureau sent applications for compensation to higher government offices and bought insurance from China Pacific Insurance (CPIC) for the residents in the following years.

From 2011 to 2013, a total of about 2.7 million yuan was given to the villagers, according to the publication.

Kong said that the villagers don't get much compensation. For every rubber tree destroyed by elephants, the villagers get 10 to 22 yuan in compensation. But in reality, every tree costs about 25 yuan.

As for complaints of low compensation, Xie Bing, the person in charge of compensating the villagers in the CPIC Puer branch, told the publication that the sums provided by the government are too low.

Jiangcheng is a national level poor county. Besides applying for financial help from governments at higher levels, there doesn't seem to be a better way, except perhaps to give up entirely and travel to other towns for work, but to many villagers this feels like too much of a repeat of their previous experiences.



On the move

The Huashiban villagers originally moved from Dashanbao county, more than 200 kilometers away, in 2001. The move was to make space for black-neck cranes, which live in the Dashanbao mountainous region.

In 1989, the black-neck cranes were listed as a first-class State protected animal. In 1900, the local government approved plans for a protection zone in Dashanbao. In 1994, the zone was upgraded to the provincial level, then the national level in 2003, and the cranes increased in number from 300 to 1,300.

In a government-approved migration that started in March, 2001, more than 1,200 villagers moved to Huashiban, the publication reported. The new village has a warmer climate and is more suitable for agriculture.

However, not everyone was pleased. Many villagers found the new location too hot. Many went back to Dashanbao after a couple of months.

Those who stayed had to adapt to the new climate and land, as well as learning new agricultural techniques. Because Dashanbao had a colder climate, they only needed to know how to plant potatoes and buckwheat, not corn, sugar cane or bananas. The government gave them each 40 yuan and nothing else.

"It felt like the government just threw us into a forest and left us," Kong said.

In other cases, protecting endangered animals doesn't necessarily mean evicting the local residents. A black-neck crane protection zone was also established in Huize township, more than 100 kilometers from Dashanbao. China Environment News reported that the villagers are gaining a profit because tourists are flocking to the zone.

Villager Jiang Shixue told China Environment News that he used to be the poorest person in the village, earning less than 10,000 yuan a year. But after the zone was established he opened up a resort at the best spot to see the cranes, earning him 80,000 in just five months.

But the cranes that brought him luck also brought him trouble. His son planted potatoes next to the zone, and two thirds of the seeds were eaten by the cranes.

Director of the protection zone management bureau Xian Guoyue told China Environment News that there isn't any compensation for the villagers and that the government can't address complaints of damage to farms.

Therefore, the bureau worked to provide the cranes with abundant food so they wouldn't bother the villagers.

But for the villagers in Huashibao, who have just adapted to the new lifestyle, the misery isn't over. In 2011, the elephants came. This time, they are not sure they can emigrate again.

"Farmers are afraid of farming. After the land goes to waste, the same dilemma as 10 years ago might occur," Fei said. "The young people can go to other cities to find a job, but what about the old ones?"

South Review - China Environment News
Newspaper headline: Attack of the pachyderms