Development problematic elephant in room

Crop raiding by elephants is frequently reported in communities within and around protected areas in all counties. The crops that are often targeted during elephant raids are sugar cane, corn, pineapples, and oranges, which are major income sources for locals, and crop loss due to elephants has increased sharply since the early 2000s.

From 1991 to 2014, 40 people were killed and 198 injured by elephants in Lincang, Pu'er, and Xishuangbanna prefectures.

With the ever-increasing human resident population around protected areas and the continuing loss of natural forests over the entire region, it will be difficult to eliminate or mitigate human-elephant conflicts. Human-elephant conflicts are the primary cause of the illegal killing of most Asian elephants.

Both the local and national governments need to develop a more comprehensive conservation strategy to balance the rapid development of the local economy, which is mainly based on deforestation and loss of natural wildlife habitats. The survival probability of elephants in the region depends on the effective mitigation of human-elephant conflicts, the preservation of remaining natural forests, and the connectivity of fragmented habitats.

Restoring elephant habitat, establishing ecological corridors and designing cross-boundary projected areas between China and Laos, China and Myanmar at the border areas have been critical to the survival of elephants in the region.

But new protected areas and ecological corridors in the range of the Asian elephant, coupled with effective and legal protection measures are needed. The feasibility and necessity of building ecological corridors among the Mengyang, Shangyong, and Mengla Nature Reserves have been evaluated, and these corridors are expected to secure elephant migrating routes and facilitate the movement of isolated populations.

The author is an associate professor at College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University.