Learning to live with elephants

Real-time monitoring

Before heading to his farmland for work, Tao pulls out his cellphone and taps the wild Asian elephant watch app. This handy piece of tech shows the movements of nearby herds and sends out early warnings.

"The nearest herd is about 2 kilometers away. It will send me a warning when they reach a 1-km radius from where I am. Many villagers now have the habit of checking the location of the herds before going out," Tao said.

Considering the elderly villagers who aren't used to using cellphones, warnings are also broadcast via loudspeakers and warning signs also get put out, he added.

Launched in August 2020, the early warning system monitors any presence of wild Asian elephants near the villages surrounding the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve.

With the help of 600 infrared cameras and 177 intelligent broadcasting systems, 38 areas where the wild species frequently appears are covered. The system uses artificial intelligence image recognition to identify the elephants, and the entire process from image capture to the sending of early warnings only takes about 15 seconds, according to the reserve.

Meanwhile, in Xishuangbanna and Pu'er, a team of 55 Asian elephant rangers monitor their activity, especially the larger herds.

On an afternoon in July in Xishuangbanna's Mengman village, ranger Zheng Xuan, launches a drone equipped with an infrared camera to monitor a patch of forest near farmland and the rail line linking China and Laos.

"The Ran Ran family slept there overnight, so we sent out a warning to the villagers via the mobile phone app at 3 am," Zheng said. "It's now around 4 pm and just about time for them to wake up."

Within minutes, infrared images show the elephants moving near the edge of the forest, their body heat captured in pink.

Zheng then flew the drone above them at a safe distance and switched on the normal camera. The herd of 31, consisting of adults and calves, was seen casually on the move in the forest. Each herd is led by the oldest female elephant, the matriarch, which decides where to move, eat and rest.

"Without a doubt, China is the safest place for Asian elephants to live," said Zheng, citing the many protections for them within the country. "There has been a baby boom among wild elephants in the country in recent years."

Zheng and a team of rangers have been monitoring the Ran Ran family of wild Asian elephants since 2016. He prefers to be called a guardian of the elephants, rather than a ranger.

"The family is very used to finding food in villages, so we must monitor them closely 24/7 to prevent conflicts between them and the villagers. If the elephants get near the road or railway, we then have to approach them and guide them away," he said.

Also, it's important to prevent the herds from migrating further north like the odyssey taken by a group of 15 elephants four years ago that caught global attention, Zheng said.

In March 2020, the Short Nose family of elephants left their home in the nature reserve in Xishuangbanna. They headed northward and roamed all the way to the provincial capital of Kunming before returning home on Aug 12, 2021. As they crashed into people's houses, munched on their crops and guzzled their water along the journey of more than 1,300 km, an emergency task force was set up, marshaling a cast of thousands to guide the elephants away from villages and cities.

"It remains a mystery as to why the herd migrated so far in 2020, and it may happen again so we must be prepared," Zheng said.

An adult Asian elephant consumes about 150 kilograms of food each day, and a herd of elephants can easily devour an entire field of crops in one sitting. To reduce losses, Xishuangbanna launched a wild animal accident public liability insurance plan in 2011.

As of July, more than 215 million yuan ($30.2 million) has been paid to villagers for damage to their agricultural products caused by wild animals. A total of 87 percent of the payouts have been made to cover the losses caused by Asian elephants. More than 37,400 insurance claims for wild animal-related incidents were made between 2021 and 2023 in Xishuangbanna, according to provincial authorities.

Tao said: "Last October, wild elephants ate 0.27 hectares of corn that I had grown. I received 3,000 yuan in compensation."

Since 2022, the compensation standards for agricultural products, including corn, rice and sugarcane have been raised as their market values have increased. "I could have made more than 6,000 yuan from selling that corn, so the villagers still wish the compensation standards can be further lifted," said Tao.