THE ANIMAL-HUMAN CONFLICT

RAJESH MENON is a wildlife photographer and environmental conservationist living in North India. Here he shares some ideas for solutions to the animalhuman conflicts that are apparent in all regions of the world today.

- RAJESH MENON

Recently I heard the news that a man died in Spain, gored by a bull during one of the country’s popular festivals. Such headlines make me wonder, “Are we playing God with Nature?”, “Are we the reason for all the chaos in the world around us?”, “Are we knowingly looking for a reason external to us?”

Things back home in India are not rosy either. Down south, elephants are burnt to death for entering human settlements. Wild animals are electrocuted for entering human settlements. Elephants are run over by trains as they try to cross the railway tracks in Assam. Tigers and leopards are poisoned for coming too close to us. I could go on and on.

I spoke to my forester friends, and they shared some useful insights about the other side of the story: The number of little children who die every year, grabbed in front of their mothers by leopards that prowl near human dwellings; poor farmers who face the wrath of wild boars destroying their crops. These are genuine issues that a few face, unlike the multitude of city dwellers. One for the team, as they say. A team that has no clue about the daily wars the poor farmers face to stay alive each night. There are farmers and tea-estate workers in the northeast and the South of India who face the wrath of wild elephants. For them, it works during the day and fending off wild animals at night, without sleep. But then, how many of us are aware of these conflicts?