Grassroots groups tackle human-wildlife conflict across the India-Nepal border

Five years ago, Shankar Luitel, a farmer who lives in Bahundangi village in Jhapa district, in the southeast corner of Nepal, used to spend several days every month at local forest department offices. There, he would help his neighbours to get compensation for the deaths or injuries of family members or loss of property and crops caused by wild elephants coming from across the border in India.

These days, this takes up much less of his time. It is not because the government has made the compensation process for human-wildlife conflict easier – it still involves a labyrinth of recommendations and decisions at different levels, taking between six months and a year to get the money. But it is because the residents of Bahundangi are having to deal with fewer incidents of human-elephant conflict, thanks to the work of Luitel and a network of fellow volunteers spanning both sides of the Nepal-India border.