Elephants test peaceful coexistence in Yunnan

Forty-two wild Asian elephants have gathered in a rural area of southwestern China's Yunnan province, moving between forests and farmland and occasionally venturing near villages.

The elephants, belonging to three herds, have been feeding in maize fields and passing close to villages in Mengxian township in Ning'er Hani and Yi autonomous county, prompting authorities to step up efforts to keep both people and elephants safe.

Their return is a sign of a recovering ecosystem. But for people sharing the landscape with the elephants, it also brings the challenge of living alongside them.

In Mengxian, the elephants have become a familiar sight since April this year, with their numbers reaching an annual peak in August.

For Fu Chun, a 50-year-old resident of Zhushan village, the animals are hardly strangers. He has worked as an elephant monitor for more than a decade.

Since the herds arrived, Fu has spent his days tracking the elephants and warning villagers to keep away from their activity areas, particularly when farmers are working in the fields.

At times, the elephants have come within about 500 meters of him. When one charges, monitors run uphill.

"It doesn't happen often. Most of the time, we can keep a safe distance," Fu said.

The first elephant of the year arrived in Zhushan in April. The number detected in the area has risen sharply, from nine on Aug 14 to 42 on Sunday.

The elephants move between Ning'er and neighboring Jiangcheng Hani and Yi autonomous county.

"They come and go," said Wang Siqi, a worker with the agriculture and rural development service center in Mengxian township. "In some years, they come almost every month."

The elephants typically enter Mengxian from Dashujiao village in Jiangcheng, moving through forests and farmland in search of food. Based on past patterns, Wang said they are unlikely to continue north and will probably remain around Zhushan village and nearby areas.

Greater forest coverage and stronger biodiversity protection have made the area increasingly suitable for Asian elephants, Wang said. But forests, farmland and villages now overlap with the animals' routes, making encounters difficult to avoid.

"Elephants do not only live inside protected areas, they also live outside, where they interact with people," said Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, a Spanish ecologist and professor at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"They need to move from one place to another, instead of staying in the same place forever," he said. "We don't expect human-elephant conflict to finish. What we want is to make the conflict not too intense."

A revised wildlife protection regulation in Yunnan, which took effect on Aug 15, further strengthened measures covering habitat protection, monitoring and early warning, wildlife corridors and compensation for damage caused by wild animals.

In Zhushan village, that means drones in the sky and monitors on the ground.

Six monitors are deployed each day to track the elephants. When the animals are far from villages, drones typically survey the area every 30 minutes. At night, thermal-imaging drones are used to track their movements.

Once the elephants' location is confirmed, the information is shared in villagers' WeChat groups, warning residents to stay away and avoid working in affected fields.

The cost of coexistence is also partly offset through insurance.

Forestry authorities in Pu'er city have purchased insurance covering wildlife-related damage, including compensation for injuries, crop losses and some property damage caused by Asian elephants.

For example, compensation for rubber trees more than five years old is set at 52 yuan ($7.74) per tree. Damage to brick-and-timber structures is compensated at 300 yuan per square meter.