People in Assam’s Charaideo plant 6 lakh saplings to ward off wild elephants

Hundreds of people came together in Charaideo district of Assam to plan more than six lakh saplings between 11-12pm on Sunday to make people aware about man-animal conflict and ward off elephants from their paddy fields.


The villagers decided to cultivate paddy exclusively for wild elephants in a reserve forest. This has been aimed to keep off marauding herds from paddy fields in nearby human habitation. Man-elephant conflicts is a major problem in the region and people for long have been using different methods to keep off wild elephants – like poison, chilli bombs, electrified fence and even bee hives.

Sonari MLA Tapan Kumar Gogoi, who participated in the plantation drive along with a host of dignitaries, said that the district has been worst affected by the human-elephant conflicts which has taken several lives of humans and the elephants as well.

“Today we have planted a good number of banana, bamboo and elephant-apple saplings along the reserve forest areas. These are favourite foods of elephants. I think once these trees grow up, the elephants will stop coming to the residential areas. We are also planning to plant paddy seeds in and around reserve forests in the open places,” Gogoi told The News Mill on Sunday.

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