- previous
- 1
- 2
- | single page
E-mail
Print
Albert Mumbeko of Katubya, a former railway worker, lives in a flimsy house of grass and sticks: That was the only barrier between him and a massive bull elephant that woke the 76-year-old and his wife at midnight a few months back.
It was gobbling down his small corn crop.
Mumbeko crept out, heart beating wildly. "I could see its eyes in the moonlight, big and fierce. It looked very angry and aggressive. Its ears were open."
That's an elephant warning. He and his wife fled, but the elephant stomped their house down. Then went on eating.
"We felt very angry, we felt very sad when we came back and saw our house destroyed."
When he sees an elephant, he feels impotent fury. "We hate elephants. They're all bad."
It's a warm October evening, a good time for elephant-spotting in Mosi O Tunya National Park in southern Zambia. As the sky turns to slate, a group of elephants swims across a river. Suddenly, the exhilarating sound of an elephant trumpeting, right by the car.
Dozens of elephants meander peacefully or wallow in the water. One old bull elephant splashes water over himself. Small elephants frolic.
One baby, with mini-tusks, trots amid the matriarchal group. On short legs, it falls behind. It curls its little trunk into its mouth and prances, breaking into a gallop to catch up with the big group.
Several open-topped safari vehicles chug alongside, as rangers exchange radio intel on the best elephant viewing. All is quiet, except for the call of birds, the engines and the ceaseless tweeting and clicking from the nest of excited digital cameras.
Seasoned elephant watcher Ferrel Osborn is awed by the creatures. That doesn't mean he's sentimental about them.
"I'm fascinated by elephants," he says. "But I don't love them."
He's not the kind of conservationist who thinks that the real elephant problem is people -- African overpopulation and habitat destruction.
He thinks that humans can live with elephants, as long as they take a few simple precautions. One key is giving people an incentive to try: At the moment, the revenue generated by tourism doesn't trickle down to those whose livelihoods are threatened by the animals.
His outfit, the Elephant Pepper Development Trust, hopes to preserve elephants by helping farmers protect their crops, reducing conflict and saving both human and animal lives.
The Zambia-based trust trains African farmers to repel elephants by using chile peppers. Elephants hate chiles.
African farmers often burn chiles as a repellent, but it's not enough. The trust's method involves four simple steps, but takes a lot of work and commitment.
The method: 1) Leave 5 yards of cleared space between the forest and the fields. At night, smelling humans around, crossing the gap into a field makes the elephants nervous. 2) Plant a thick barrier of chiles around the field. 3) Put up a fence with rope that has jangling cans (which gives them a fright) and cloth flags coated with thick chile-spiked grease. 4) Burn chiles, making pungent smoke.
The trust guarantees to buy chiles grown from farmers and manufactures its own Elephant Pepper brand of chile spices and sauces, sold in southern Africa and soon to hit the U.S. market. (They are already available to U.S. customers via the group's website.) The profits go back into the trust.
"We say, 'We are not here to give you food or money,' " Osborn said. " 'We're here to give you an idea. It's up to you to take it up.' "
One Zambian farmer followed the method carefully and has successfully kept elephants off his crops for three years. It worked so well that his neighbors accused him of practicing witchcraft.
But the most important long-term solution, the foundation says, is for people to stop settling and planting crops in established elephant corridors.
"These corridors have been there for decades, so it's easier to move the farmers rather than the corridors," Osborn said. But land use is a highly sensitive issue, controlled by tribal chiefs, who decide who can live and farm where. If your chief gives you land -- even in the middle of an elephant corridor -- that's where you go. But passing elephants will gobble the crop, and your family will be at risk of elephant attack.
The governments in the region don't do much to help farmers, according to local aid organizations and farmers -- and the Elephant Pepper Development Trust is too small and poorly funded to train every farmer in southern Africa and supply chile repellent start-up kits.
Farmers, seeing few benefits flowing from tourism, resent the government's inaction.
"The tourists come, but people here don't have safe drinking water and they have poor schools, and they feel like they're not getting any benefit," Osborn said. "If the community could see that you do get a lot of money from the tourists, I honestly think they would not mind the elephants."
Mumbeko, whose house was demolished, has his own solution: If tourists love elephants so much, the government should fence them in.
"When I see one of those animals, I just know it wants to kill me."
robyn.dixon@latimes.com
It was gobbling down his small corn crop.
Mumbeko crept out, heart beating wildly. "I could see its eyes in the moonlight, big and fierce. It looked very angry and aggressive. Its ears were open."
That's an elephant warning. He and his wife fled, but the elephant stomped their house down. Then went on eating.
"We felt very angry, we felt very sad when we came back and saw our house destroyed."
When he sees an elephant, he feels impotent fury. "We hate elephants. They're all bad."
It's a warm October evening, a good time for elephant-spotting in Mosi O Tunya National Park in southern Zambia. As the sky turns to slate, a group of elephants swims across a river. Suddenly, the exhilarating sound of an elephant trumpeting, right by the car.
Dozens of elephants meander peacefully or wallow in the water. One old bull elephant splashes water over himself. Small elephants frolic.
One baby, with mini-tusks, trots amid the matriarchal group. On short legs, it falls behind. It curls its little trunk into its mouth and prances, breaking into a gallop to catch up with the big group.
Several open-topped safari vehicles chug alongside, as rangers exchange radio intel on the best elephant viewing. All is quiet, except for the call of birds, the engines and the ceaseless tweeting and clicking from the nest of excited digital cameras.
Seasoned elephant watcher Ferrel Osborn is awed by the creatures. That doesn't mean he's sentimental about them.
"I'm fascinated by elephants," he says. "But I don't love them."
He's not the kind of conservationist who thinks that the real elephant problem is people -- African overpopulation and habitat destruction.
He thinks that humans can live with elephants, as long as they take a few simple precautions. One key is giving people an incentive to try: At the moment, the revenue generated by tourism doesn't trickle down to those whose livelihoods are threatened by the animals.
His outfit, the Elephant Pepper Development Trust, hopes to preserve elephants by helping farmers protect their crops, reducing conflict and saving both human and animal lives.
The Zambia-based trust trains African farmers to repel elephants by using chile peppers. Elephants hate chiles.
African farmers often burn chiles as a repellent, but it's not enough. The trust's method involves four simple steps, but takes a lot of work and commitment.
The method: 1) Leave 5 yards of cleared space between the forest and the fields. At night, smelling humans around, crossing the gap into a field makes the elephants nervous. 2) Plant a thick barrier of chiles around the field. 3) Put up a fence with rope that has jangling cans (which gives them a fright) and cloth flags coated with thick chile-spiked grease. 4) Burn chiles, making pungent smoke.
The trust guarantees to buy chiles grown from farmers and manufactures its own Elephant Pepper brand of chile spices and sauces, sold in southern Africa and soon to hit the U.S. market. (They are already available to U.S. customers via the group's website.) The profits go back into the trust.
"We say, 'We are not here to give you food or money,' " Osborn said. " 'We're here to give you an idea. It's up to you to take it up.' "
One Zambian farmer followed the method carefully and has successfully kept elephants off his crops for three years. It worked so well that his neighbors accused him of practicing witchcraft.
But the most important long-term solution, the foundation says, is for people to stop settling and planting crops in established elephant corridors.
"These corridors have been there for decades, so it's easier to move the farmers rather than the corridors," Osborn said. But land use is a highly sensitive issue, controlled by tribal chiefs, who decide who can live and farm where. If your chief gives you land -- even in the middle of an elephant corridor -- that's where you go. But passing elephants will gobble the crop, and your family will be at risk of elephant attack.
The governments in the region don't do much to help farmers, according to local aid organizations and farmers -- and the Elephant Pepper Development Trust is too small and poorly funded to train every farmer in southern Africa and supply chile repellent start-up kits.
Farmers, seeing few benefits flowing from tourism, resent the government's inaction.
"The tourists come, but people here don't have safe drinking water and they have poor schools, and they feel like they're not getting any benefit," Osborn said. "If the community could see that you do get a lot of money from the tourists, I honestly think they would not mind the elephants."
Mumbeko, whose house was demolished, has his own solution: If tourists love elephants so much, the government should fence them in.
"When I see one of those animals, I just know it wants to kill me."
robyn.dixon@latimes.com
Digg
Twitter
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Save more than