Thaindian News

Kathmandu, July 13 (IANS) A part of eastern Nepal is simmering with anger against the Indian authorities and its own officials with wild elephants playing havoc and no compensation or permanent solution in sight.
It is also a matter of growing concern for wildlife organisations with two tuskers having died within one week and over 200 local houses having been destroyed.

The latest skirmish occurred in Baundangi village in Nepal’s Jhapa district, adjoining India’s West Bengal state, Sunday when an elephant, said to be three to four years old, was killed after it came in contact with an electrified fence surrounding the house of a villager, Man Bahadur Tamang, the World Wildlife Fund-Nepal said.

Last week, another tusker was killed, either by a stray bullet or stones hurled by irate villagers to drive the marauding herd away.

“There is tension in the area with the villagers threatening police and forest officials,” said Santosh Nepal, WWF-Nepal’s special policies and programmes coordinator.

With the Brahmaputra plains in India’s Assam state being flooded, the herd began migrating, crossing the open border between India and Nepal and entering Jhapa.

Since last week, about 200 elephants descended on the village, destroying homes and crops. In the past, at least 24 people have been killed in Baundangi alone by migrating herds.

“The tension can be defused by the simple mechanism of setting up a compensatory fund,” says Nepal. “We have done it in Chitwan district where elephants from the resorts created havoc and the result was successful.”

WWF-Nepal has begun talks with Nepal’s forest officials to discuss such a compensatory mechanism that could have contributions from the Indian government, Nepal, the locals themselves and NGOs.

Nepal’s chief secretary has the authority to call a meeting with wildlife officials and the Indian Embassy to thrash out an amicable solution.

However, the issue has been shelved due to the political turmoil in Nepal.

With a 52-day-old government at the helm, the national parks and wildlife conservation department having been freshly reshuffled and the forest minister appointed as recently as June 24, Nepal’s wildlife policies lie in disarray.

The new prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who too can call a meeting between Indian and Nepali officials, is battling for survival. Able to pass state policies in parliament Sunday, his focus now is on getting the budget, to be tabled Monday, pushed through.

After that, he will leave for Egypt’s Sharm-el-Sheikh town to take part in the Non-Aligned Movement Summit.

Meanwhile, the elephant menace is creating bad blood between India and Nepal, WWF-Nepal warns.

“The villagers think the animals are deliberately pushed into Nepal by the Indian authorities and are simmering with anger and resentment,” Nepal warned.