West Bengal: Now toilets to help reduce human-elephant conflict

West Bengal has evolved a rather unique solution to growing human-elephant conflicts (HECs) — constructing toilets so that villagers don’t have to defecate in the open and face the wrath of the jumbos. This has now become a thrust area for Forest Department officials to tackle HECs, particularly in the southern part of the state, which is a hub for such aggression.

Although Bengal harbours only two percent of India’s wild elephant population (around 30,000 jumbos in the country), they are believed to be responsible for over 20 percent of the total human deaths. Open defecation is one of the concerns flagged by officials in West Midnapore district, where accidental deaths do occur when villagers, who come to relieve themselves in the wee hours, find themselves face to face with pachyderms in the forests bordering their hamlets.

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