Elephant peacemaker given Goldman Prize

[Guest guest]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/19/MN4G1CN4QV.DTL

 

Elephant peacemaker given Goldman Prize

 

Geoffrey Cain, Special to The Chronicle

 

Monday, April 19, 2010

 

*(04-19) 04:00 PDT Prey Proseth, Cambodia* -- Sokha Seang, a 32-year-old

rice farmer, recalls the night last spring when three elephants destroyed

his home.

 

" They wanted to eat the food that we stored in our homes, " he said. " I lost

everything. "

 

Poor farmers like Seang have felt obligated to kill the elephants - with

guns, sharp bamboo sticks or poison - because they cannot afford to lose

their crops. But now, thanks to a soft-spoken man known affectionately as

" Uncle Elephant, " farmers have found a more peaceful way of living with the

elephants, said Seang, who lives in this village in the southwest province

of Koh Kong.

 

In Cambodia's elephant zones, Sereivathana Tuy has stopped farmers from

cutting the animal's nationwide population - which stands at less than 400.

For that, he is one of six recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize, to

be awarded today in San Francisco.

 

Seang credits Tuy for his newfound harmony with the hungry behemoths.

Instead of using deadly weapons against the endangered Asian elephants,

Seang and other villagers now ward off attacks with hot chile peppers,

fences, fireworks and foghorns.

 

Tuy, 39, was a park ranger in the 1990s when he developed a community-based

model for ending human-elephant conflict that revolves around building trust

with farmers and giving them the resources to fend off elephant attacks. In

2003, he brought his model to Flora and Fauna International, a nonprofit

wildlife organization based in Cambridge, England.

 

The project is among recent efforts across Asia and Africa to save dwindling

elephant populations.

 

" It ties in with a growing realization, " said Simon Hedges, Asian Elephant

coordinator at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, that methods

relying heavily on law enforcement " haven't worked especially well. "

Teach kids first

 

The Cambodian program begins with teachers who educate children on how to

co-exist with elephants in one of four schools across the country in

isolated communities. The children then pass the new knowledge to their

parents. Soon, " the whole village is talking about these techniques, " Tuy

said.

 

The plan also encourages farmers to alternate rapidly growing crops such as

cucumbers and white radishes, which can be harvested several times a year

before elephants have the chance to eat them. Tuy also encourages farmers to

stop planting crops that elephants love - watermelons, sugarcane and bananas

- in favor of ones they detest, such as eggplant and chile peppers.

 

" This way, the villagers keep their harvest and we conserve the elephant

population, " he said.

 

In Cambodia, the clash between elephants and humans peaked after the

communist Khmer Rouge regime was ousted in 1979. Vast deforestation

followed, forcing elephants to search for food and water on farmlands near

their traditional forests.

Poaching drops off

 

At the same time, wealthy Cambodians sought expensive elephant tails, tusks

and the tips of their trunks - body parts they believe are symbols of power.

This led to widespread poaching, Tuy says.

 

Before Tuy became director of his elephant project in 2005, conservationists

would often report elephant killings to the police, who would then jail the

perpetrators until a fine, sometimes as much as $2,400, could be negotiated.

 

Today, poaching has been reduced significantly. Irate farmers, however, are

still known to kill elephants that threaten their crops. Tuy says law

enforcement is just part of the solution. " Ultimately, you need education

and improved livelihoods, " he said.

Love of pachyderms

 

Ironically, Tuy's passion for wildlife sparked under the Khmer Rouge.

 

In 1975, he and his family were forced to leave the capital of Phnom Penh

and toil on a rice farm in southeastern Kandal province. When the Maoist

regime was ousted four years later, Tuy and his family returned to the city

to find their house destroyed and most of their relatives missing.

Depressed, he returned to the countryside to continue farming before a

chance encounter changed his life.

 

In 1981, a group of *mahouts,* or elephant trainers selling traditional

medicines, arrived near his village with two elephants bedecked in opulent

jewels.

 

" I saw the elephants, and I was amazed by them, " Tuy recalled. " I fed the

elephants for the first time. I couldn't sleep that night because I saw

elephants in front of my eyes. "

 

In 1988, Tuy won a scholarship to study forestry at a university in Minsk,

the capital of what is today Belarus. Four years later, he returned to

Cambodia to work as a park ranger.

 

Tuy estimates that there have been between five and 10 elephant attacks on

humans since 2003, and only one death since 2005 - a sign that farmers are

using safer methods to drive elephants away. **

 

**He hopes that his program will double the elephant population to 1,000

elephants in 20 years. He concedes that would be a difficult feat, given the

animal's long gestation and maturation process. Asian elephants, which can

live as long as 60 years, don't reproduce until they are between 8 and 14

years of age - enough time to be killed by predators, poachers or disease.

 

For now, however, Tuy's biggest hope in saving the elephants is changing

Cambodian attitudes.

 

" When I was a poacher, I made a mistake, " said Sophal Shout, a 54-year-old

community leader in Prey Proseth who teaches villagers about alternative

ways of repelling elephant attacks. Tuy " helped me find the right path. "

*Endangered elephants *

 

There are three species of elephants: the African Bush Elephant, African

Forest Elephant and the smaller Asian elephant.

 

*African: *The largest populations, found in eastern and southern Africa,

are threatened by the ivory trade. At the start of the 20th century, the

African population was estimated at between 5 million and 10 million. By the

end of the century, poaching and deforestation had reduced their numbers to

about 500,000.

 

*Asian: *Experts say 40,000 to 50,000 wild Asian elephants live across Asia,

60 percent of them in India. In Cambodia, deforestation has caused the

elephant population to dwindle from 2,000 in 1995 to fewer than 400 in 2010.

In Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, China and Nepal, experts say only 300 or so

are left in each country.

 

- Geoffrey Cain

 

This article appeared on page *A - 1* of the San Francisco Chronicle

 

 

Read more:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/19/MN4G1CN4QV.DTL#ixzz0\

lda0Q5s3

 

 

--

http://www.stopelephantpolo.com

http://www.freewebs.com/azamsiddiqui