Guwahati, Oct 3: The efforts for facilitating coexistence between human beings and wild elephants often hit road block because of delay in payment of compensation to victims of conflict with elephants.
In this backdrop, Tejas Moriswami, the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Assam’s Goalpara district which have several HEC hotspots including Lakhipur area bordering Meghalaya, has exhorted upon victims of conflict with wild elephants to apply for compensations at the earliest for early payment of the same.
The forest officials was interacting with villagers on September 29 last during an awareness programme on “ Human-Elephant Coexistence” conducted by Aaranyak at Kurung village Siva Temple Auditorium with participation of 93 villagers including 48 males and 45 females. Some of the participants were from Garo Hills area Meghalaya as the area is on the inter-state boundary and villagers on both sides face the similar problem.
The DFO Moriswami was the chief guest in the programme which was also attended by forest officials from Lakhipur Range.
The DFO explained to villagers about steps that were being taken by the department to mitigate the HEC in lakhipur area, along with Aaranyak. He assured to clear all compensations to HEC victims as early as possible.
Kurung village situated on the inter-state boundary of Assam and Meghalaya. It is under Lakhipur revenue circle. Out of 70 households in the village 10 are located across the inter-state boundary in Garo Hills of Meghalaya. The village has a mixed population of Nepali, Koch, Rabha and Garo communities.
As per the people of this village, they have been coexisting with wild elephants since 2004 but the HEC started since 2016. Crop damage and house damage by elephants are most common in this area which have lost four human lives so far due to the HEC.
The villagers use torch lights, crackers, noises to chase away elephants at present sans any supports from Govt and NGOs for human-elephant conflict till today.
The awareness programme on “ Human-Elephant Coexistence” was conducted by Aaranyak at Kurung village Siva Temple Auditorium where members of Elephant Conservation Network (ECN) too were present.
The awareness meeting was presided by Mallinath Upadhaya. Lohit Chetry, President, Rabha Hasong Adisory Body, shared his ideas to improve the elephant habitat and fodder availability in various open spaces near the forest area.
From Aaranyak, Anjan Baruah, Ripunjoy Nath, Vendo Sangma, Nipul Chakma, Subhas Rabha and Rupam Gayari attended the programme. Anjan Baruah made a presentation on ‘Human Elephant Coexistence’ and underscored the key causes of HEC, different types of mitigation measures to enable human elephant coexistence. Aaranyak team also displayed the Gajakatha posters both in Assamese and Garo languages raise awareness among villagers about the elephant. Aaranyak team also distributed torch lights meant for watching out for wild elephant at night, among some of the participating villagers.
