Top five easy tech solutions to improve human-elephant coexistence
For technology to promote human-elephant coexistence (HECx), it must be simple, cheap, and scalable to ensure community participation and sustainable application.
This was one of the key insights at the breakaway session on ‘Leveraging technology for conflict mitigation and coexistence’ at the International Conference on Human Elephant Conflict Management organised by the Karnataka Forest Department (India). The British Asian Trust participated in this conference which brought together delegates from across the world to exchange ideas, learnings, and best practices to mitigate increasing incidents of human-elephant conflicts worldwide.
Here are five simple, affordable, and scalable ways of using technology to mitigate human-elephant conflict.
- Protecting life and property with community-managed seasonal solar fencing
Electric fencing is one of the most effective barriers limiting contact between human and elephant populations, mitigating human-elephant conflict.
However, these fences must offer passage to elephants, as Mr Vivek Menon (Chair, IUCN Asian Elephant Specialist Group and Co-Founder, Wildlife Trust of India) noted in his keynote address at the conference. Elephants are intelligent creatures with incredible power, and they will find a way to break barriers that restrict their movement to an important destination – usually food and water.
In Northeast India, our implementation partners Aaranyak work closely with local communities to monitor how they and elephants use the land. Then, we train the communities to install and maintain cheap single-strand seasonal solar fences on angled bamboo posts.
The posts themselves are supplied by the community, and using a single-strand solar-powered fence ensures that the technology remains affordable for agrarian communities who rely on their yields to feed themselves and their children.
This fencing is only used during the cropping season and is removed after harvest. The seasonality ensures that elephants have passage when they need to and can keep away areas that hold greater value for human communities.
- Light’s red, elephants ahead!
Warning lights cut through the mist in the hill station of Valparai, home to about 70,000 people, and 140 elephants. Here, the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) has established several early warning systems to alert people to elephant movements, so they can bypass the herds without incident, including the distinctive red alert lights.
Started in 2011, the alert light operations were initially operated by the NCF. These incredibly effective alert light operations significantly reduced losses due to human-elephant conflict.
Their simplicity and ease of use meant that over time taxi unions, tea estate management, forest officials, and other community members have taken over operations and management, with maintenance support from the NCF.
3. Herding elephants with WhatsApp-powered Rapid Response Units (RRUs)
Information and communication technologies like WhatsApp have made instant messaging incredibly accessible for people across demographics. As of 2022, over 390 million people use WhatsApp in India, making it one of the most effective platforms for sharing information in real-time in the region.
We worked with volunteers from local communities to create WhatsApp ‘Groups’ where people could inform each other about elephant sightings in real-time. These volunteers are also trained in reading elephant movements so they can ensure safe passage for elephants and prevent encounters with people, so everyone wins.
4. Lighting the way for coexistence
For such large creatures, elephants are incredibly silent when they move. Between that and their colouring, they move like ninjas in the night! Visibility is key to mitigating human-elephant conflict. People cannot get out of the way of an elephant herd if they do not know where they are.
That is why in Northeast India, our partners are installing solar-powered streetlights in remote communities where access to electricity is limited. Simple, affordable, and easy to set up, these lights have gone a long way in building community confidence and protecting unsuspecting people and elephants alike from surprise encounters.
5. Emergency, elephants! Using public service announcements to mitigate conflict
When your job involves getting your hands dirty (literally) like farmers, phones are not the most convenient tool to carry around.
Recognising this was the impetus for the Karnataka Forest Department to deploy off-road vehicles equipped with loudspeakers, to announce the presence of elephants. These public service announcements are part of a series of tech-powered early warning systems directed from a Forest Control Room that tracks elephant movements and informs local communities when herds move into human-use areas.
Vehicles with loudspeakers move through human settlements, announcing elephant herds to farmers and other community members who may not have access to their cell phones.
Advancing detection technologies for coexistence
All of these uses of technology for human-elephant conflict mitigation work because they are simple and inexpensive, allowing them to be easily adopted and used by local communities. These factors also ensure that the technologies are scalable across landscapes and contexts to meet the needs of local communities.
However, while these early warning and barrier systems are working well, there is a need for more technology focused on detecting elephant presence and movement.
Some efforts, such as the use of AI in camera systems are already underway. However, with more research into blending technology with indigenous knowledge, these systems can be made accessible to local communities who are the primary stakeholders in situations of human-elephant conflict.