Threat of the threatened

According to Yan, rice can be sold at a price of 0.3 yuan per kilogram, and normally 0.67 hectares of land can harvest 350 kg rice. But if elephants destroy the rice, they only receive compensation for half the amount of rice they would have produced at half the market price.

Official data shows that between 1991 and 2010 the direct economic losses caused by elephants were 270 million yuan ($4.4 million) but the total compensation the villagers received was 38.39 million yuan.

Li Zhongyuan, head of the local elephant conservation administration says that the current compensation relies on insurance companies, but the insurance companies are not happy because they are losing a lot of money despite funds from the government.

Last year the government paid 20 million yuan to the insurance companies, but the money they paid out to compensate farmers was more than that, and they ended up losing more than 40 million yuan .

"The elephant damage is happening more and more often, and the insurance companies lack the incentive to cover the risks," said Yan Si, head of the village, "I don't know if they will carry on insuring us."

The current insurance is managed in a traditionally centralized way that hinders the effective mitigating of human-elephant conflicts in Xishuangbanna, according to Chen Shu who in a paper for National University of Singapore argues that to optimize funds and improve mitigation efficiency an insurance cost-sharing mechanism jointly paid by government, rubber farmers and Chinese tourists should be introduced.

"It is important to make sure that multiple stakeholders are willing to be involved and support elephant conservation in the long run," Chen concludes.

One of the key stakeholders to protect the elephants and mitigate human-elephant conflicts in the long run must be the local people, as the elephants have a significant influence on the local communities.