About Elephant Pepper:
http://www.elephantpepper.org/about.html

Recently I read a similar story named “The rightful Inheritors of the Earth” by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, written originally in Malayalam. It is about the same topic-a farmer surviving against all the troubles posed by various animals in his field. Once, his wife decides to kill the rats and all other troubling animals. It here that the author wonders why he should kill them. What right does he have to take their life. They are also rightful owners of the land which he has purchased for farming.

I find it difficult to blame either the farmer or the elephants, here. Both of them are doing what is required for their survival. Though this is not a new problem for the farmers, there is no proper solution for it.

Electrified fences might help the farmer, but what about the elephants?

As the population is increasing day by day, millions of such problems are caused.

Also, I heard that there was a leopard which had its litter in a Sunflower field, though this might not affect the crops, it is not a good sign for conservation.

Vishnupriya, Nayantara: Conservation is often about these dilemmas, but we’ll never have answers unless we grapple with the difficult questions, no?

Ayyappan: The people who live along the boundaries of parks such as Bandipur are among the most marginalised – they are poor, often landless, very often dependent on rainfed agriculture, have limited access to education and healthcare, and sometimes belong to the wrong castes/communities. Are we going to consider them “encroachers”? We who live in the cities “encroach” on forests in myriad ways – through dams that bring us electricity, through mines that bring us iron and steel, but living far away from the locations of these activities, we think ourselves guiltless.

Deepa: Eco-tourism is not always all that it is made out to be. Of course, some do it well, but sometimes it is mere greenwashing of conventional tourism. Perhaps another post on that some other time!

This is why eco-tourism is needed. If Mallesha could have tourists sitting up on his machan, experiencing the “authentic” (ugh! I hate that word) tension of waiting for elephants and dreading that the crop will be destroyed….Mallesha would be able to make some money and afford some solutions… There are no easy answers, but with a will, we could work our way.