JUMBO MENACE AT KASARAGOD AND THE ASSAM MODEL

Shocking: Hanging Solar Fence to Deter Wild Elephants

Savithri Bhat, an 82-year-old farmer at Kattipalam near Kanathur, Muliyar panchayat of Kasaragod district in Kerala, had slept quietly for almost five decades, till the marauding wild elephants from the Karnataka forests came to her 10-acre farm. Out of the 1000 plantain trees she had, nothing remains. The herd of elephants also uprooted several coconut and areca nut trees. 

She is aware that there are 10-13 wild elephants, on the banks of Erinji river, just two kilometres up, waiting for the next adventure. The havoc on human habitations can happen anytime, perhaps, tonight.

Her farm along the Payaswini river is also facing frequent attacks by wild boars, porcupines and monkeys. "We barely get any coconuts from the 350 coconut trees. The trees are felled by the elephants for the leaves," she said. The elephants have a special affinity for palm trees, which they devour completely.

Wild elephants at Muliyar

The elephants also destroy the irrigation pipes. “They break the pipe and stand astride to cool themselves,” said her son Dr Sreekrishna Raj.

Around Rs 45,000 is needed to irrigate an acre. The elephants destroy them in one night.

In the wee hours of a day in April 2021, a farmer at Muliyar, Karthyayani saw eight elephants destroying her river bank plantain garden at Bathakumri. She lost around 20 ready-to-harvest plantain trees, two areca nut trees and two tender coconut trees. Her sister Sarojini's adjacent property was also damaged.

A Farmers Collective is formed

Protests from the farmers have prompted the panchayats to act, and a hanging solar power fence is being erected. Not waiting for the Karadka block panchayat's initiative, Bhat fenced her property with her own money. She spent around Rs 5 lakh to erect a horizontal solar fence. 

Farmers demanded the government in the middle of April to immediately push the 12 elephants at Muliyar back into the forest. "The threat to our lives has increased, and the farmers are on the brink of suicide," said K P Jyothi Chandran, president of the Aanakkaryam (Elephantine Matter) Farmers Collective, formed to find a solution to the man-animal conflict.

The Collective's WhatsApp group with 256 members is abuzz always with messages from distressed farmers, in the early hours.

The Karadka block panchayat formed a people’s rapid response team (RRT) and 21 youths were trained and deputed to counter the elephants,  in September 2021. They are paid Rs 900 per day.

Leela and daughter Dhanya at Belliappadi

They resorted to the age-old practice of bursting crackers to scare the jumbos. Now, when crackers were bursting, the elephants seemed to enjoy it. An elephant even slapped Raveendran Chettathodu (43), an RRT member, with its trunk. He had a narrow escape with a broken arm and had to undergo surgery.

A survey by the Collective found that 390 farmers have lost crops and properties worth Rs 42 crore since October 2019. 

The total compensation payable for loss of crops due to attack of wild animals is Rs 75000 and the payment to an individual has been restricted to four times a year.

Savithri Bhat

The application for compensation of T Gopinathan Nair of Kanathur in Muliyar, founder of the Collective, and also a co-0perative bank president, is pending since 2020. “I applied for compensation only once because the process is troublesome”, he remembered. The elephants had raided his 10 acres at least six times.

The herd of elephants have a perfect habitat on the bank of the Payaswini. Due to a shortage of food and water inside the forests, elephants stray into fields, feed on crops and attack farmers. Environmentalists urge the government to grow jumbo-friendly bamboo trees, vegetables and fruit plants instead of planting commercially valuable trees, besides ensuring drinking water inside. 

The elephant herds started trespassing the border after 2002. “Before 2018, the elephants were coming as guests from April-May to drink from the river. During the floods of 2018, in the landslides at Madikeri, Kodagu, the elephants lost their traditional corridors. So after October 2018, when they were driven out from the Kerala border, they began the habit of travelling back till Madikeri and then returning”, said Nair. 

Destruction in Kanathur

Fed up, the Farmers Collective took out a march to the Divisional Forest Office on April 21, 2022, and the Collectorate on August 23 to protest against the ineptness in securing the lives and properties of farmers.

The hanging experiment

And now, 40 kilometres above Bhat’s farm, five panchayats in the Karadka block are jointly constructing a 29 km hanging solar fence to deter wild elephants. The fence will extend from Muliiiyar in Delampadi to Choorithod in the Kuttikol panchayat.

The Rs 3. 33 crore wildlife conflict mitigation project, which the Forest Department implements, is funded by the panchayats, Delampady, Karadka, Muliyar, Bedakam and Kuttikkol. “The first stretch of eight kilometres is over. Before the monsoon, the herd of 18 elephants were on the other side of the fence. But now they are on this side. The fence will be charged after driving them out,” Karadka block panchayat President Sigi Mathew said.

This is the first instance in Kerala in which panchayats have pooled their funds for such a project.

The State Planning Board has recognized it as a model project and is giving a grant of Rs 66 lakh. But the contract has been given to the Police Housing Construction Corporation, which has no expertise in the matter. 

The field survey began in November last year and the path was laid in April this year.

Jyothi Chandran

“The entire fencing will be over by December,” Kasaragod Divisional Forest Officer C Biju said. “Three herds of jumbos are giving us trouble, but the largest one has crossed the border and gone. We will be assigning the monitoring and charging of the solar fence to persons from the elephant squad soon,” he said.

According to forest officials, the stray elephants causing trouble in the region were mostly from the Sullia range of the Mangaluru forest division and Talakaveri forests of Karnataka. The elephants have learnt to override traditional mitigation mechanisms like trenching and normal electric fences. Hanging fences could be erected at Rs 6.5 lakh/km as opposed to around Rs 1.5 crore for rail fences and boundary walls. The maintenance cost also will be much less.

The fence has 1.2 mm thick steel wires hung in a row from a 1.5 mm thick horizontal overhead wire supported by two 11 metre high iron poles at each end. The wires are connected to solar power systems. The wires are hanging down like a curtain up to four metres from the ground and this enables small wild animals to pass beneath it.

Solar hanging fence at Adhur

When dusk sets in, the power is put on. Solar power is passed on to the wires and when an elephant comes in contact with the wires, it gets mild shocks. This acts as a repellent and the animal leaves the place as soon as it recovers. It is non-lethal, so there are no chances of life loss. 

While elephants have mastered how to stamp over traditional electric fences installed on the ground, the authorities hope they will find it difficult to damage the dangling steel wires.

The project is expected to benefit over 10200 people besides safeguarding crops on 1200 acres. 

Narayanan at his farm

“The project got delayed because of the department’s insistence on not felling the acacia trees, on the pathways”, alleged Jyothi Chandran. The department has a shortage of trained wildlife personnel, agreed the DFO. 

“The farmers are sceptical about the efficacy of the fencing because it is done on a level platform, between hills, and the elephants can journey through the valley,” Jyothi Chandran warned.

A fence at Wayanad and Walayar

While the Kasaragod project dragged on, a 9.5-km hanging solar fence was erected at Walayar in Palakkad in July and a 10-km solar hanging fence was constructed on the Wayanad-Karnataka border with speed. 

The department spent Rs 54 lakhs to erect the fence in the Walayar-Kanjikode region, from Palakambat to Ayyappanmala in the Puthussery panchayat. In 2020, a pregnant wild elephant in Silent Valley died consuming a pine apple, inside which an explosive was kept.

At Wayanad, I C Balakrishnan, Sulthan Bathery MLA,  sanctioned Rs 70 lakh from his asset development fund. The fence was constructed in the  Perikkallur- Kolavalli-Madapallikunnu stretch in the Mullankolli panchayat. 

Solar fence at Walayar

“It could be completed quickly because we formed people’s committees in every ward,” Balakrishnan said. Another 40 lakhs have been sanctioned for a second phase and he has submitted a proposal for hanging fences at Chethalayam.

Across the border, in Mysuru, the farmers and villagers residing near Nugu Dam backwaters and Chikkadevammanabetta areas were severely affected by the jumbo menace. In 2019, a hanging solar fence was successfully experimented with in the fringe villages of the Sargur forest range, at a stretch of 20 kilometres. 

The contract at Mysuru and Wayanad was bagged by Mysuru-based Nature Fence.

When compared, the cost at Kasaragod and Wayanad is on the higher side. While the fencing at Kasaragod and Wayanad costs Rs 6.5 lakh/km, it is Rs.3.5 lakh.at Mysuru and 5.5 lakh at Walayar.

The Assam model

Kerala has a lesson to learn from the Assam model, in terms of people’s participation.

In Assam, about 750 people and 250 elephants died unnatural deaths in the state between 2010 and 2018 as a result of the human-elephant conflict (HEC). In 2019, approximately 75 human and 60 elephant deaths happened due to HEC.

Villagers erecting a solar fence in Assam/ courtesy: Aaranyak

When human-induced elephant deaths using illegal electric fencing were rising in the state, an NGO, Aaranyak stepped in.

In 2014, at Subankhata, on the eastern part of the Manas Tiger Reserve, Aaranyak convinced local communities to convert their illegal electric fences into solar-powered ones. With active participation from the villagers, a 14-kilometre-long fence was erected that benefitted about 1,000 households as well as 100-odd elephants that inhabit the area. The fences are still functional and no incidents of elephant or human death.

A total of 24.5 km of solar-powered electric fences were erected at two sites in Baksa district and 7.5 km in Nagaon district with support from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Centre for Large Landscape, Montana University, USA and Elephant Family India Foundation.

As a result, about 10,000 households have benefitted. The fences encompass villages, without hampering the passage of elephants, fostering coexistence between both species.

The key to the success of any project is the involvement and capacity-building of local communities. In Assam,  the villagers provided materials such as wooden/bamboo poles, devoted time to constructing the fence and took the responsibility for maintenance. 

"The fences that we installed in Assam are not hanging fences. Rather, we used GI wires and poles", explained  Dr Alolika Sinha, Conservation Biologist with Aaranyak.

"Ours is a community-based solar fence model, wherein we approach the local communities in human-elephant conflict areas, discuss the ideas and involve them. The model has worked well as the communities are involved right from the planning stage and there is a sense of belonging. So far, we have provided more than 80 km of solar fences in Assam", she said.

Aaranyak also provided a bio fence, using lemon plants to surround the actual crops. "This too has worked for us, as the elephants couldn't penetrate the lemon fence and damage the crops. All these tools are site-specific, and for ensuring coexistence between humans and elephants/wildlife, one has to be innovative", feels Dr Sinha. 

And yes, all these are temporary solutions. “A long-term solution can be securing the habitats/corridors of elephants”, said Dr Sinha. So, the ordeal of Kasaragod is not going to end soon. And, Savithri Bhat has escaped to Bengaluru, for the time being.

© Ramachandran