Nepal tests fencing approach to protect farms and elephants

“We are not angry with the elephant and know that we need to protect it, but we also need to protect ourselves”.

This is a brave statement by Kaushala Budha, a Nepali farmer in the Patabhar hamlet, whose house had been nearly destroyed by a raiding elephant the previous night. I had expected more anger and a call for revenge, but no such thing. “If the government would help us, we would pack our bags and leave”, she says. Not too surprising because last night’s raid on her house was the 6th time in a year.


For the past week I have been working in the Bardiya National Park in western Nepal. The Himalayan Tiger Foundation (NTF) invited me to come and help them think through their program on human-elephant encounters. NTF works here with National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) and WWF-Nepal, advising them on improving park management and ultimately increasing the abundance of key species that occur, like tiger, rhinos, elephants, swamp deer, and a range of other exciting species.

This time, we are here to address two issues: Testing a new system of electric fencing, and starting a grassland improvement program to increase palatable grasses to get more deer and antelopes and ultimately more tigers.

Human-elephant encounters are costly to the community. A recent study showed that the total yearly elephant damage in the 5,000 ha project area is about US$ 35,000 – 50,000 in crop losses and damage to houses.

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