Elephantine zeal

Natarajan Ishwaran, a wildlife expert of Sri Lankan origin, has been actively involved with conservation programs in China for decades. Kuang Linhua / China Daily

"Wolong (in Sichuan province) alone is not enough to protect the giant panda", an animal that has been the symbol of World Wide Fund for Nature since its founding in 1961, he says.

Big animals also feature more prominently in local culture and economy. The Asian elephant has been used in wars, temples and the timber industry, he says, and in India, the elephant-faced deity Ganesha is worshipped. The challenge is especially acute in Asia, where the growth of the human population has put much pressure on open spaces.

Ishwaran, 63, however, isn't an activist who goes around carrying a plaque that reads, "no humans allowed".

Balancing development and conservation is case by case, he emphasizes. You cannot adopt the same protective measures in elephant country as in tiger territory. For one thing, elephants may come and raid your crops whereas tigers come to eat your chickens and goats!

Things like elephant raids are not a daily occurrence and there should be insurance and compensation schemes to offset financial losses suffered by local farmers, he suggests. But since China's elephant population is so low, there is no doubt in his mind that incidents like the occasional crop raid have little danger of upsetting the larger picture.

The big picture, of course, is that human activities are intruding into wildlife. The conflict has forced Ishwaran to think about the way agriculture is conducted, especially in Asian countries like China.

"Perhaps there are opportunities to reform the ways (in which) rural land is used," he says. "Perhaps you don't need to focus on the old way, small-scale agriculture but shift to the model of less land and higher productivity."