By Mizan RahmanDhaka
Reckless deforestation leading to food shortage has led elephants to forage close to human settlements, official sources said yesterday.Wild elephants have trampled at least 50 people over the past 10 years in remote Langadu area of the southeastern hill district of Rangamati in Bangladesh.Elephant experts have attributed the phenomenon to deforestation and infrastructure expansion exposing them to food scarcity. A village under Langadu sub-district of Rangamati district has been regularly battered by the marauding mammoths.“We are fighting with wild elephants almost every day . . . they (elephants) become violent at night,” Idris Fakir, a resident of Amtali village, said.He said the marauding wild elephants, destroy homesteads and eat the paddy.Fakir said the use of drums has failed to halt the onslaught.But wildlife experts said elephant numbers are also falling in the rugged southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts because of deforestation giving the green hills a barren look. Farmlands have also encroached on elephant turf.According to a forest department estimate, at least 30 people die every year on average in Bangladesh and some five to six elephants lose their lives annually to human-elephant conflicts.But conservator of wildlife at the forest office in Dhaka, Tapan Kumar Dey, said under a newly amended regulation, the forest department pays 1,00,000 taka ($1,200) to a victim’s family in case of a death and 50,000 taka in case of injuries by elephants, tigers, crocodiles, pythons, etc.“Wild elephants rush for food to localities as the flora has been burnt for “jhuming,” (traditional shifting cultivation by setting hills on fire). Since we have violated their abode, they have been violating ours,” the conservator of Rangamati forest circle, Shafiul Alam Chowdhury, said.Several hundred families from a number of villages at Langadu have fled their homes as wild elephants appear more rowdy, sub-district chairman of Langadu Tofazzal Hussein said.“Many people of the sub-district have become destitute losing their homes and livelihood to elephant attacks,” he said.At least 50 people, he said, were killed in the past one decade and 10 of them lost their lives in Rajnagar area, seven at south Marishyachor, two each at Murshidabad and Ghonomore and others from different villages under the sub-district.Besides, the elephants damaged and ransacked more than 500 houses, compelling hundreds of families to flee.Villagers said some 40 wild elephants, in herds, have been raiding regularly Amtali, Pokshapara, East Chailyatali, Ghonomore in Bhashainna Adam union parishad (UP), Jalalabad, Rajnagar, Murshidabad, Chhoto Mahilya of Gulshakhali UP, Marishyachor and Battyapara of Boga Chhattar UP almost daily, said concerned chairmen of UPs.“I have communicated the situation to the concerned authorities two months ago followed by reminders,” said sub-district executive officer of Langadu AFM Fazle Rabbi.The last comprehensive study on the elephant population in Bangladesh found that there are around 400 elephants, including 150 migratory pachyderms, and 81 captive elephants in northern Sherpur and southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts being their main abodes, forest officials said.