Man-elephant conflict continues to pose grave threat in Udalguri

Will the human-elephant conflict ever be resolved in the Indo-Bhutan border area in Udalguri district administered by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC)? Yes, it seems so.

 The consistent efforts of nature-loving organizations, wildlife activist and a few government agencies have failed to reduce crop depredation loss and injury and death of human beings as well as the innocent wild elephants, which has made people living around wildlife habitats more hostile towards conservation. As a consequence, there has been a constant increase in the death of elephants as well as humans. In Dhansiri division of Udalguri alone, eight elephants were killed in 2012-13, 10 in 2013-14 and 7 in 2014-15, 7 in 2016 and 7 in the 2017 till date against lost of 21 human lives and 12 injury in 2015-16, 9 human lives and 12 injuries in 2016 and 5 human lives in 2017 till date.

What adds to the woes of the families of the victims is getting the ex-gratia compensation paid by the Assam Forest Department for loss of life and crops. The process of getting the names enrolled by visiting forest offices is cumbersome and sometimes officers also have to be bribed.

The efforts of wildlife activists like Nabajyoti Baruah have been praiseworthy. He has relentlessly volunteered to mitigate the man-elephant conflict in the district for the past decade. Baruah along with another nature lover Arif Khan of Garuajhar offered two tractors of banana plants to a herd of nearly 100 wild elephants which had been taking shelter in and around Hattigarh TE of Udalguri recently. Baruah also distributed a number of high power torchlights to keep a vigil on wild elephants to villagers of 2 No. Amjuli,Hattigarh, 2 No. Satghoria and forest officials of Panery Beat Office on Tuesday.

He has been voluntarily working towards mitigating the man-elephant conflict and has also been conferred the C Subramaniam Award for Community Leadership by the National Foundation for India (NFI) under the Ministry of Security and Justice of Government of India  for 2016-17 on March 2, 2017.  Baruah has been also constructing watch-towers in the conflict-zone villages.

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