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As tea estates are scattered all over Assam, many of these estates adjoin forest areas. As a result, the estates that are in close proximity are frequently visited by animals. With depletion in their habitat area, they enter these areas often in search of food.
Although elephants do not feed on tea leaves, they ravage the entire plantation area in search of food. Therefore, in order to prevent the elephants from entering the plantation area, electric fences are installed around them. The voltage of these fences is quite high, thereby resulting in electrocution. Also, in order to ensure that water does not accumulate and affect the plants, deep ditches are dug throughout the plantation area. Elephants, especially the younger ones tend to fall into these ditches and get trapped, thereby getting separated from the herd. In fact, if fallen in an improper way, they may break their bones, or even die. Kushal Konwar Sarma, a veterinarian and member of Project Elephant, a government-sponsored wildlife conservation program, stated that “of the roughly hundred unnatural deaths of elephants a year in Assam from poisonings to electrocutions, eight to ten are the result of falls into tea garden trenches.” Moreover, to protect the tea plants from pests and insects, the planters use pesticides. These pesticides are washed away when the plants are watered or when it rains. The pesticides get combined with water and flow through the ditches, which ultimately gets discharged in nearby water bodies. The salts in some chemicals have been known to attract elephants, and some of these substances can be highly toxic if ingested. According to Greenpeace India’s publication, most of the tea leaves that were used as samples for their research contained a high dose of thiamethoxam, a powerful pesticide which not only controls pests but also kills insects, and injurious to wildlife.
The fatalities that occur within tea plantations have great impact on elephant population. Hence, there is a serious and urgent need to protect the species. It has become absolutely necessary that a robust elephant-friendly infrastructure is adopted in the estates. The objective behind adopting elephant-friendly infrastructure is two-fold. First, to ensure a peaceful coexistence between humans and elephants, and second, to conserve the endangered majestic beauty. Therefore, the management of the estates must adopt conflict management protocols and strategies. They must also adopt and plan the infrastructure of the estates in such a way that the atrocities against the elephants are prevented.
Measures can be adopted by the management to ensure elephant-friendly infrastructure such as identification of the elephant passage through the estate and bordering the plantation area alongside the passage with eco-friendly fences like solar fence or bio-fence. The intensity of the shock received from a solar fence is very low. Therefore, it will help to scare the elephants away and prevent them from entering the plantation area while ensuring that their lives are not lost. Bio-fencing is the establishment of fence by use of plants, which are usually thorny in nature. These fences are cost-effective and do not cause severe injury to the elephants. Thorny bamboo, which is abundantly available throughout the state can be an effective solution for bio-fencing. Bamboo plants can also be planted in the passage, where the elephants can find food easily and avoid entering the plantation area.
Additionally, an effective treatment plant needs to be set up where the harmful chemicals in the water released from the plantation is first treated and then disposed at a remote location. This will ensure that animals who drink water from these sites are not affected by the water released and do not suffer from poisoning. Also, in order to avoid falling of elephants and breaking their bones, a proper drainage system needs to be ensured. The deep trenches need to be covered with strong equipment that can bear the weight of the elephants.
A noteworthy initiative has been taken by University of Montana in collaboration with Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network in this regard. They launched a programme in 2017, called the Elephant-friendly Tea Certification Programme. The programme encourages tea planters to grow tea in an elephant-friendly way by providing price premium that would come from the sale of the certified tea. It aims at elimination of electrocution risks to elephants from fencing and power lines, regulation of drainage ditches and other hazards that may injure elephants, and elimination of risk of poisoning of elephants.
Asian elephants have been classified as endangered by the IUCN Red List. If no stringent measures are initiated immediately, we may push these majestic creatures towards extinction, and they will be gone forever. By adopting elephant-friendly infrastructure in the tea estates, we can move a step ahead in elephant conservation. The earth belongs to animals as much as it belongs to us. Therefore, every possible effort must be made to find a way out to ensure a peaceful co-existence of man and the wild.
