How an agricultural shift helped a Nepal village keep migrating wild elephants at bay

The heavy thud against the glass window sent Krishna Bahadur Rasaili’s heart racing. Stepping outside, he saw his granary lay in ruins, and an elephant was feasting on his hard-earned paddy harvest.

For years, this has been a terrifying reality in Bahundangi, a village along Nepal’s eastern border with India along the Mechi River. Wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), following their ancient migratory routes, frequently storm farms, devour crops and even ransack granaries.

Desperate, villagers, including Rasaili, were accustomed to banging their tin drums and waving flaming torches in a futile attempt to drive them away. On the evening of December 8, 2021, Rasaili even contemplated resorting to the old methods. But his family members remembered what local campaigners had told them about elephants and did something different.

Instead of shouting or fighting back, they quietly stayed indoors. With half of its body inside their home, the elephant devoured the rice and then moved on.

“We no longer fear elephants nor are we angry at them,” Rasaili says. “When they come, we stay inside. If we don’t disturb them, they walk their path. If we shout, they create trouble.”

Once a hotspot for human-elephant conflict, this village has transformed itself into a model of peaceful human-wildlife coexistence through a combination of...

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