At the end of February 2023, we were present at Tang village, Nam Son commune - this is an area where wild elephants often appear, destroying people's crops. "It just came back 2 weeks ago, uncle. At this time, the rice has not yet bloomed, so it did not cause much damage, but only trampled a small area and then left," said Mr. Lo Van Luyen - Head of Tang village.
Mr. Luyen's family was a victim of this lone female elephant. When all the bananas planted in the garden were eaten by it. The small rice fields along the stream were eaten and destroyed by the elephant every time the harvest season was near. Mr. Luyen had to put up barbed wire to protect but still could not stop this elephant. This is the last wild elephant left in Quy Hop district.
Mr. Luyen's house is located next to National Highway 48C. According to Mr. Luyen, this area used to be home to a large herd of wild elephants. There was no national highway yet, and the road through here was just a trail. Meanwhile, around this area were vast bamboo forests - the elephants' favorite food. In 1990, Mr. Luyen's parents were the first household from the commune center to move here to settle down. After that, many other households followed. "At that time, I still remember, this herd of elephants still had 8 elephants. They often came to the puddle near my house to drink and bathe. We often teased them, they were still very gentle back then," Mr. Luyen recalled. That puddle is now next to National Highway 48C, and people still call it the elephant puddle. Now, although there is only 1 elephant left, it still often comes to this puddle to drink.
As the population here grew more and more dense, the bamboo forests also gradually thinned out. Instead, there were rice fields, acacia forests, cassava fields... It seemed that the destruction of the bamboo forests and the scarcity of food sources made the elephants angry. They began to destroy crops, and people tried to chase them away many times but to no avail. In 1995, a woman, upon witnessing a herd of elephants eating in her family's rice field that was about to be harvested, boldly ran down to chase them away. However, she was unfortunately trampled to death by the elephants. Afterwards, the elephants continued to attack another person, but the victim was lucky to escape death.
According to the elders, it seems that the elephants, fearing revenge from the people after the fatal beating, agreed to give up their familiar habitat to humans and move to other lands. They led each other through the Chau Ly and Chau Dinh communes to the forests in the Van Loi and Ha Son communes. This area is about 40km from their old habitat.
A few years later, the villagers of Tang saw the elephants appear again. However, this time there was only one female elephant. “It is not clear whether the elephants that went to Van Loi and Ha Son were killed or disappeared, but out of the 8 that came back, only 1 returned. It continued to live in the old area,” Mr. Lo Van Luyen recalled. When it returned, this female elephant had a deformity in its hind foot. According to the villagers, it could have been an injury from a trap. Since then, the female elephant has lived alone, often returning to the villages of Nam Son and Bac Son communes to cause trouble.
Not far from Mr. Luyen’s house, for many years now, the life of Mrs. Luong Thi Danh’s family (Tang village, Nam Son commune) has also been turned upside down because of this female elephant. This is the household that suffered the most damage caused by the elephant. “It comes to this house all the time. Some months it comes back 5 times. We can’t even eat or sleep in peace,” Mrs. Danh said, pointing to the bamboo fence on the side of the stilt house that was just torn down by the elephant.
Not only did she eat all the bananas in the garden, recently Mrs. Danh did not dare to leave food exposed outside, but had to hide it carefully in the stilt house for fear that the elephant would eat it. Not long ago, the jar of pickled bamboo shoots she had just salted along with 2 bags of corn bran were also pulled down and eaten by the elephant with its trunk. One night, Mrs. Danh woke up, looked out into the yard and was terrified when she discovered the elephant playing with a ball. “It always comes back at night. Whenever I hear a dog barking, the elephant comes back. It does not attack people. It only comes back to find food and seems to live alone, lonely and sad, so it prefers to go back to people's houses. Even so, we are still afraid that it might get angry and attack people. That is why many nights we have to stay awake because it is disturbing us,” Mrs. Danh said.
Every time an elephant passes through the village, the people's rice fields and sugarcane fields are destroyed. Partly because the elephants eat them, partly because they trample them. To prevent elephants, many households have built barbed wire fences to protect their houses and fields, but that measure is still ineffective. Every time the elephant moves, it destroys the barbed wire. In early June 2022, a wild elephant suddenly became angry while returning to the village and simultaneously killed two of Ms. Danh's cows. The elephant left the mother cow's body behind, but the baby cow was taken by the elephant and taken deep into the forest. After that incident, Ms. Danh and many other households have repeatedly requested the local authorities to take measures to move the elephant elsewhere and at the same time compensate for the damage to the people. However, to date, these requests have not been implemented.
Meanwhile, at the mid-term conference of the Nghe An Province Elephant Conservation Emergency Project held in 2018, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Dinh Viet Hong concluded in writing, assigning local authorities where elephants live "in case of elephant damage to crops and property, they need to promptly assess and propose support solutions to the Provincial People's Committee".
Regarding this issue, Mr. Luong Van Biet - Chairman of Nam Son Commune People's Committee said that the commune received many petitions from the people. After receiving the opinions of the people, in 2022 the commune made two reports to the Quy Hop District People's Committee. However, so far, the support for damage as well as the relocation of the elephant has not been implemented.
Leaders of Quy Hop district confirmed that the district regularly receives documents from Nam Son and Bac Son communes about wild elephants regularly destroying trees and crops. Accordingly, every year when the rice is ripe and ready for harvest, elephants often appear in the gardens in Hieng, Manh, Vi, Puc Nhao (Bac Son commune) and Tang (Nam Son commune). Elephants move through many areas and gardens, destroying crops, rice, and acacia trees, affecting the economy and people's lives.
The People's Committee of Quy Hop district then set up an inspection team. The results showed that the area of trees and crops destroyed by elephants was exactly as reported by Nam Son and Bac Son communes. According to the inventory of Quy Hop district, in 2021 alone, the damage caused by this wild elephant to the people of Bac Son and Nam Son communes was 130 million VND. In 2022, the locality has not yet had statistics on the damage, but just the two cows of Ms. Danh's family were worth about 30 million VND.
Mr. Quan Vi Giang - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Quy Hop district said that the district then sent reports to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in which it proposed departments, branches and sectors to inspect and consider the plan to relocate elephants to Pu Mat National Park, a large area with the function of preserving wild animals. At the same time, consider having support policies for people in Bac Son and Nam Son communes who suffered damage caused by wild elephants.
On June 29, 2022, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development responded in writing to the proposals of the People's Committee of Quy Hop district. Regarding the relocation of wild elephants, the department's leaders said that it could not be implemented due to many reasons. Regarding the issue of support, the department requested the People's Committee of Quy Hop district to prepare a detailed dossier to submit to the Provincial People's Committee and the Department of Finance to support the affected people in accordance with the province's regulations. However, up to now, 8 months have passed, and this has not been implemented.
