The Valparai district in Tamil Nadu has witnessed 39 deaths in 19 years due to human-elephant conflict. Often when we see reports on such incidents, the flashy headlines like “Man trampled to death by an elephant” catch everyone’s attention and inject feelings of fear and negativity towards the animal.
Elephants have been living in this region for centuries now and humans only for the past 120 years. But in this short span of time for an elephant, they have witnessed drastic changes to their habitats.
As thick rainforests are getting converted into tea plantations, the animals feel confused and scared. In such a situation, any unexpected encounter with humans creates chaos which sometimes leads to larger destruction and loss of life. Also, humans fear for their safety, a legitimate concern, and in such encounters they panic and eventually end up hurting themselves or the pachyderms.
So, how do we resolve this issue? This team from Nature Conservation Foundation has figured out an effective and simple solution to this problem.
Watch this amazing and powerful video to know how the human-elephant conflict was solved with two simple ideas using the ubiquitous mobile phone!
The video was first published by Evanescence Studios here.
Thanks for the story tip: Deepanshu Sodhani on Facebook.