Hundreds of farmers living in Shangzhai and Hejiazhai villages,
Nanping Township in Simao Prefecture of Southwest China's Yunnan
Province, gathered on January 25 at a meeting ground shaded by an
old banyan tree.
Dressed in their festive best, some performed and the others
watched various song and dance programmes and enjoyed the first
"dress-up party" of the two neighbouring villages held in the past
20 years.
The party was not the usual sort after the harvest and before
Spring Festival, which fell between January 31 and February 15 this
year.
Entitled "Love My Home and Co-exist with Elephants - Spring
Festival Celebration of the Asian Elephant Project of China," the
celebration was jointly organized by the International Fund for
Animal Welfare (IFAW) and its local partner, the Forestry Bureau of
Simao Prefecture.
The joyful celebration was a well-earned reward for the organizers'
three years of hard work.
And for around 1,500 residents of the two villages, it was a rare
chance to enjoy their lives, which have been completely changed by
five Asian elephants.
Bittersweet memories
To
many villagers of this hilly area, about five kilometres south of
Simao, memories of the Asian elephants are bittersweet.
At
the courtyard of her house nestling on the slope and overlooking
the valley, 39-year-old Mei Congxiang told China Daily that the
villagers were happy and excited, when an adult bull Asian elephant
came to Shangzhai Village in the summer of 1993.
He
was at ease when he was close to humans and "cute," she said.
IFAW experts explained that the elephant's relaxed attitude may
have meant he was tame.
"At first, we got a chance to watch an elephant with our own eyes,"
she recalled. "We fed him with sticky rice."
The animal ate in their paddy fields in the day and slept in the
forest near the meeting ground at night. He stayed there for one
week and left.
To
commemorate his visit, two families in the village added a Chinese
character "xiang" (elephant) into two of their new born family
members' given names.
In
1996, five female Asian elephants - two adults and three calves -
moved to Simao from neighbouring Xishuangbanna, the major habitat
of about 250 Asian elephants living in the country.
Instead of a short visit, the group chose to settle down on the
mountains in the Nanping and Cuiyun townships of Simao. Unlike the
first elephant, the five have brought the villagers "elephant
disaster" ever since.
"They ate rice, corn, fruit and bamboo shoots and trod on our
fields," said Mei Congxiang. In that year, her family harvested
only 10 bags of crops, about 40-50 bags less than in the previous
year. As a result, the family had to lay waste to 0.2 hectares of
dry mountain land for three years.
And the elephants are dangerous. They killed two local people.
"When we met them in the nearby mountains on our way to pick
mushrooms, they yelled at us," she said. "It was really scary."
The villagers tried a number of means to prevent the elephants from
getting any closer to them. They used tractors to make a noise,
turned on lights or started fires when the animals approached.
"In the beginning, this would scare them away," she said. "But our
attempts became futile when the elephants got used to them."
So
a local farmer spent more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,209) to build a
one-kilometre-long ditch to protect his bamboo forest in 1999. "But
few people can afford such great expense," Mei said.
Finally, the villagers appealed to the local government for
compensation. "But a family in our village could only get a maximum
of 200 yuan (US$24) from the government per year," she said.
Simao Forestry Bureau official Cao Yigong admitted that the
department has an annual budget of only 20,000 yuan (US$2,420) to
compensate for locals residents' losses as a result of wild
animals. From 1996 to 1999, however, the elephants caused an
economic loss of 2.6 million yuan (US$314,390) to people of Nanping
Township.
Some villagers began to think about poisoning or shooting the
elephants. "We all know the elephant is an animal under protection
of the State," she said, explaining that the local residents were
getting so desperate that they were prepared to break the law, and
face a jail sentence.
This desperation remained until IFAW launched its Asian elephant
project in July, 2000 in Simao.
Asian elephant project
A
television news report brought the human-elephant conflicts in
Simao to the attention of the leading international organization
dedicated to protecting animal rights in 1998, Dr Zhang Li, IFAW
acting country director for China, said at the project's Simao
office.
In
the latter half of 1999, IFAW sent a team of experts to Simao and
made a comprehensive investigation into habitat conservation of
wild Asian elephants in Simao.
"It was mainly an investigation into the five elephants," he
said.
According to the biologist, forests of Simao used to be the habitat
of wild Asian elephants in China. However, wild Asian elephants
hadn't been seen in Simao for 16 years, since the last three wild
elephants living in the region were hunted by poachers in 1976.
In
the 1990s, wild elephants began to move back to this region from
Xishuangbanna, thanks to the improvement of the local environment
and an increased forest area. "But only the five elephants are
actually the real settlers we knew so far," he said.
Their existence has turned Simao into one of the country's only
three prefectures where wild Asian elephants still live. The other
two are Xishuangbanna and Lincang, both in Yunnan Province.
"That's why we feel we must help the local government to put them
under good conservation," he said.
Unlike those elephants found in Xishuangbanna and Lincang which
usually live in nature reserves, however, the five elephants stay
in cultivated areas of Simao.
"Even though they can find something to eat on the mountains, which
are big enough to shelter five elephants," Zhang said, "they still
like finding food around villages because it is better and much
easier to get." So the human-elephant conflicts there are
extraordinarily intense.
"To create an ideal habitat for the group of elephants, we
concluded that we must help the locals resolve the conflicts
first," Zhang said.
In
April 2000, the Simao Office of the IFAW Simao Asian Elephant
Habitat Conservation and Community Development Project was founded
in the local forestry bureau. On July 12, the project was formally
launched.
The China branch of IFAW decided to invest at least 1.1 million
yuan (US$133,010) in the three-year project. "So far we have
invested 1.45 million yuan (US$175,330)," said Zhang Li.
The project consists of three programmes: community development,
environmental education, and scientific research. Among them,
community development has been given special emphasis.
Under the programme, Zhang said, 24 "mutual aid fund teams" were
established among 205 households of four trial villages in Nanping
and Cuiyun townships, including Hejiazhai Village, in autumn 2000.
A "mutual aid fund" with a sum of 164,000 yuan (US$19,830) was
given to these teams.
As
a result, the local residents' lives and their attitude to the
elephants have begun to change.
'Mutual aid fund'
When 26-year-old Luo Jing, from Shangzhai Village heard of the
"mutual aid fund" and its way of operation, soon after IFAW and the
local forestry department began to promote the micro-loan programme
in the neighbouring villages on July 12, 2001, he thought this
would benefit his family.
So, when the programme extended to his village in September, 2001,
he joined it without hesitation.
He
and the other six representatives of six families constituted a
"mutual aid fund team."
"We got 5,600 yuan (US$677) from the project, 800 yuan (US$96) for
each family as our 'mutual aid fund'," he said. "Meanwhile, each
family put 100 yuan (US$12) into the fund to buy a share."
Then each member of the team could apply for a loan of up to 800
yuan (US$96) from the fund to develop the economy of his or her own
family. Firstly, the loan would be provided to the applicant in two
separate amounts.
"Three months after we got the first half of our loans, people with
the project office would come to check out our loan use," the
farmer said. "If we could use the money properly, we would get
another half of our loans."
On
September 30, 2001, Luo said, he got half of his loan of 800 yuan
(US$96) from the "mutual aid fund" of his fund team.
He
used the money to buy feed for his five pigs. Selling the pigs
earned the family more than 2,000 yuan (US$241) in December
2001.
On
December 30, 2001, he got another half of his loan and used it to
apply fertilizer to the family's 0.267 hectares of tea fields.
Originally the family had only 0.0667 hectares of tea field, he
said. "We will expand it to 0.667 hectares for the elephants don't
eat tea," he said.
In
September 2002, he returned the loan to the fund and paid an extra
40 yuan (US$4.80) in interest. He then applied for another loan of
800 yuan (US$96) for the next year. After getting all of the money,
on September 30, 2002, he spent it on purchasing feed for his 26
pigs.
According to the farmer, all participants of eight "mutual aid fund
teams" in the village completely returned their loans and paid
their interest on their funds.
"It's really not a big sum of money," Luo Jing said. "But, when we
discussed how to use it in our group or with people from the
project, we found some ways to decrease our loss in the 'elephant
disasters'."
People in this area used to make a living by planting rice, corn
and fruit. "Now we also grow tea, raise pigs, ducks or fish," he
said.
The changing farming methods have increased the local families'
income. Luo Jing's family earned more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,210)
last year.
The villagers are becoming more used to the elephants.
Luo Jing said he will keep growing corn on some of his family's dry
land. "If the elephants can leave some crops for us, we can use it
to feed our pigs."
"Anyway, both elephants and we people have the right to live here,"
Mei Congxiang said.
'Dressing-up' party
The local residents' changing attitude made it really easy for IFAW
and the forestry bureau to organize the party celebrating the
Chinese lunar new year.
"As a part of our environmental education programme, we designed
the celebration to raise local people's awareness of environmental
protection and team spirit," said Chen Yaqiong, environmental
education expert of the project. "We expected each fund team in the
two villages to prepare a programme for it. They did."
And the villagers' enthusiastic responses were even beyond her
expectations, she said.
"Many teams had prepared their programmes for two or three weeks,"
she said. "Some even went to the town and borrowed performing
costumes from their relatives.
"I
feel that our work is very rewarding."
So
Zhang Li has begun to think about continuing the project after it
ends in July of this year.
"We're finding a model that enables humans to live with wild
elephants in harmony," he said. "We have no reason to stop."
(China Daily February 17, 2003)