Why do elephants come in conflict with man or to put it other way why do men come in conflict with elephants?
Answer to this most ticklish but most visible conflict between man and elephant, where man is more responsible for the conflict is now being given a fresh look at the Palamu tiger reserve where a workshop was recently held in NIC Betla of PTR attended and presided over by the conservator for forest (CF) Rajiv Ranjan and a host of PTR officials including elephant victim villagers.
Ranjan said that the conflict is getting more and more painful as elephants are now seen as a great destroyer of houses, huts, standing crops of the farmers and life takers of those who come in their way.
This situation is no good either for the elephants or for the men as well since a co existence is the preferred thing and any of the two getting more notoriety is dangerous.
He said this conflict has attained a tense pitch now. But Ranjan said “One must find out the root cause of this conflict between these two. “
Reminded that cause behind the conflict is more visible than mitigating measures, which look unreachable like men have created obstacles in the elephant route by building their huts in the jungles, converting patches of jungles into their agricultural fields, occupying their water bodies, depleting their feed base etc but how to overcome these hindrances created by men which have made elephants the genuine and bonafide residents of jungles leading a life of a refugee on its own territory.
Amit Kumar a resident of Daltonganj, who is a Saturday - Sunday visitor of Betla said, “Our Home minister is pressing hard the implementation of NRC (National Register Of Citizen) and has vowed to throw out the infiltrators.
My humble plea is that Home minister should first launch this NRC right in every jungle of the country to flush out all those people who have shortened the habitat for wild life, have eaten up their feed base , have been using water meant for them and big of all have usurped the freedom of the wild life.”
The CF reiterated a team of our people in collaboration with PTR officials are visiting conflict zones in PTR to study and jot down every minute details right from behaviour of elephants to approach of villagers towards them in respect of elephants’ height, age, taste, number of calves, nature of jungle if it is dense or degraded, availability of water and obstacle or hindrance in elephants’ route etc.
