KAZIRANGA, Sept 8 - In a bid to minimise man-elephant conflict, Corbett Foundation, a wildlife NGO, in association with the Forest Department of Kaziranga, is providing solar fencing to villagers of Rangaloo area under the Burapahar Range of the Kaziranga National Park. The fencing is meant to be erected in the boundary areas to ward off wild elephants during the paddy growing and harvesting season.
According to Dr Navin Pandey, chief functionary of the Kaziranga office of Corbett Foundation, the main objective behind providing the assistance to the villagers is to avoid the conflict between men and wild animals, including wild boars. The villagers provided bamboo posts in erecting the solar fencing.
It may be mentioned that villagers will look after the solar fencing and maintain it. �There is community participation where the villagers are willingly providing bamboo posts to erect solar fencing, which covers a distance of approximately 4 km, and more than 3,000 bighas of paddy crops field will be protected from wild elephant depredations,� said L Sharma, a native of Rangaloo village area.
Since the area is not usually affected by flood and the crop yield is also better, wild elephants and wild boars forage for food there. Through this solar fencing, more than 100 families will be benefitted.
Till the other day, villagers used fire and crackers to chase away elephant herds. But with the erection of the solar fencing, villagers will not have to worry about their crops anymore. Local residents said that since the last three years, they had been trying to convince many wildlife NGOs, including government agencies, to resolve their problems.
They thanked Corbett Foundation for the help in resolving the jumbo menace.
