Wokha, July 25 (MExN): Old Riphyim and New Riphyim villages in Wokha district have yet again reported an attack by wild elephants leading to the damage of crops.
On the early morning of July 23, “a herd of wild Asian elephants numbering 20 was witnessed by the villagers at Tchukhum area which is located at the present quarry site some few kilometres away from the Helipad where people inhabitants are also slowly rising,” informed a press release today from Nyanbemo Patton, Chairperson of Old Riphyim Village Council and Nyimtsemo Odyuo, Chairperson of New Riphyim Village Council.
The elephants, who cannot comment on the issue, are said to have damaged paddy fields, vegetables, banana, farm huts, rubber, orange farms, affecting farmers of the two villages. The people of the villages have stated that they have no option but to ask the Nagaland State Government to “take the elephant far away from our land once and for all.”
The presence of wild elephants in their cultivable land and forests is becoming “life threatening” and a “frustration” for the farming community of the two villages, they stated.
Every year, the man-animal conflict is getting worse with each encroaching upon the other’s territory. The villages maintain that cultivations and plantations are not safe, and piggeries and dairy farm projects have already been abandoned due to the fear of the elephants.
Majority of the people of the area are cultivators, informed the two village council chairpersons, and “solely depend on their farm activities and field produce for their livelihood.”
“As season of the crops and vegetables are on the verge of harvesting, there seems to be growing apprehension among the farmers that their crops would be damaged/ raided by the elephants unless the government initiates proper policies and remedial measures for problems to be undertaken with timely action at the earliest,” noted the two chairpersons.
They held that the villages will be “highly obliged” if the Nagaland State Government “compensate the damage done by the elephant or do some proper assessment or mitigation, proper awareness programme for the affected farmers.”
