COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh, October 22 (IPS) – When wild elephant herds come down from the hills in the hunt for meals, Sona Miahm, with neighborhood volunteers, steps ahead to assist stop human-elephant conflicts.
Miah is main a 14-member elephant response workforce (ERT) within the Inani forest vary underneath the Ukhiya upazila of Cox’s Bazar, one of many final pure elephant habitats in Bangladesh.
“For lack of meals in reserve forests, wild elephants typically rush to localities and harm crop fields. And, as soon as we get knowledgeable, we go to the spot and attempt to return the elephant herd to the forest,” he mentioned.
In response to the Forest Division, there at the moment are about 64 wild elephants within the reserve forests in Ukhiya and Teknaf in Bangladesh’s southeastern coastal district, Cox’s Bazar.
Neighborhood volunteers typically danger their lives in returning the wild elephants to the forests, however they achieve this to guard the nation’s final wild mammoths.
He defined how they mitigate human-elephant conflicts of their locality within the Inani space.
“The elephant response groups use hand-mikes and torches to encourage the elephants to return to the forest,” he mentioned.
With a small grant from the United Nations Improvement Programme (UNDP), Arannayk Basis, a Dhaka-based conservation group, shaped 4 elephant response groups (ERTs) in Inani and Ukhiya forest ranges in Cox’s Bazar, comprising 40 males.
Working alongside the Bangladesh Forest Division, these ERTs intention to attenuate human-elephant conflicts and help wildlife rescues. The ERTs have helped stop 127 potential human-elephant conflicts prior to now two years.
Dr. Mohammed Muzammel Hoque, nationwide coordinator of UNDP’s GEF Small Grants Program, mentioned the UNDP offered a small grant of USD 39,182 in September 2023 to the Arannayk Basis to implement its two-year Ecosystem Consciousness and Restoration By Concord (EARTH) mission.
Programme coordinator Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal mentioned the mission was carried out to revive forest ecosystems and contain native communities in wildlife conservation.
Human-Elephant Conflicts Rise
Because of the destruction of their pure habitats attributable to deforestation, hill-cutting, and unplanned industrial enlargement, the wild elephants come into localities in the hunt for meals, ensuing within the rise of human-elephant conflicts.
Conflicts have resulted within the deaths of each neighborhood members and elephants.
Elephants are sometimes being killed by electrocution within the Bangladesh southeast area since farmers set up electrical fences round their crop fields to guard crops from harm.
The newest incident of an elephant being killed occurred within the Dochhari beat throughout the Ukhiya forest vary in Cox’s Bazar on September 17, 2025. Mozammel Hossain, a resident of Ukhiya, mentioned farmers had used electrified traps round their croplands and this electrocuted the elephant
He mentioned meals shortages push elephant herds to enter crop fields, whereas some farmers resort to unlawful and deadly strategies in opposition to the mammoths.
The Ukhiya and Teknaf areas have reported at the very least 4 elephant deaths prior to now yr.
Abdul Karim, an ERT member within the Boro Inani space of Cox’s Bazar, mentioned elephants typically assault human settlements and harm crops and orchards, growing their conflicts with people.
“We attempt to mitigate human-elephant conflicts and save each people and mammoths. However, since 2021, 4 folks have been killed in elephant assaults close to the Inani forest vary,” he mentioned.
In response to the Wildlife Administration and Nature Conservation Division of the Bangladesh Forest Division, from 2016 to January 2025, 102 elephant deaths had been recorded alone in Chattogram.
Retaliatory killings, electrocution, poaching, and practice collisions have brought on many of those deaths.
Saiful Islam, a resident of the Inani space, mentioned wild elephants have been trapped inside their habitat too after the inflow of Rohingyas there in 2017.
Introduce Elephant Non-Most well-liked Crops
Crops usually eschewed by elephants, together with citrus, pepper, bitter gourd, chili, cane, and okra, needs to be launched across the elephant habitats.
“We’re encouraging farmers to begin such crops to keep away from conflicts with elephants. We’re additionally making them conscious of elephant conservation,” Saiful Islam, additionally a neighborhood volunteer at Choto Inani, informed IPS.
Firoz Al Amin, vary officer of the Inani forest vary in Ukhiya, mentioned the Forest Division organized 12 consciousness programmes on elephant conservation within the Inani vary.
Arannayk Basis recognized elephant non-preferred plots adjoining to excessive human-elephant battle zones throughout the buffer space. With neighborhood involvement, 5 demonstration plots had been created on parts of land belonging to 5 beneficiaries to mitigate elephant crop raiding.
It established 4 chili-coated rope bio-fences: two at Mohammad Shofir Invoice and one every at Boro Inani and Imamerdeil to scale back crop harm attributable to elephants. These bio-fencing interventions have benefited 85 weak households in these places. The fences include coconut ropes coated with a deterrent mix of chili powder, tobacco, and grease, suspended at human top between timber to forestall elephant entry to agricultural and residential areas.
Pressing Measures Wanted to Save Elephants
A 2016 survey by the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) mentioned that there have been solely 457 elephants left in Bangladesh, of which 268 had been wild, 93 had been migratory, and 96 had been captive.
Nevertheless, about 124 wild elephants died throughout Bangladesh’s essential elephant habitats—Cox’s Bazar, Chattogram, Chittagong Hill Tracts and Mymensingh—during the last decade.
Specialists recommend a complete technique for restoring elephant habitats to forestall their extinction, which requires long-term planning, decreasing encroachment on forest areas, and eradicating illegal occupants.
Dr. Monirul H. Khan, a zoology professor at Jahangirnagar College, mentioned forests and elephant habitats have to be protected at any value to save lots of the mammoths, as their quantity is dwindling daily in Bangladesh.
Many new settlements and crop cultivations have taken place contained in the nation’s elephant habitats, he mentioned, accelerating human-elephant conflicts.
Rising crops that elephants usually don’t choose, bettering bio-fencing with journey alarms, and creating salt lick areas can all assist scale back human-elephant conflicts.
The specialists say implementing beehive fencing not solely safeguards crops but additionally generates job and revenue alternatives for the local people. Subsequently, it’s potential to attain elephant conservation whereas concurrently minimizing human-elephant conflicts.
Monirul mentioned the Bangladesh authorities has taken on an elephant conservation mission with its personal funding for the primary time. “I hope the mission will assist preserve the mammoths in Bangladesh,” he added.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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