The Elephant Conservation and Management Committee has approved Bt749 million, to be secured from the Central Fund by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plants Conservation, to address wild elephant attacks on people and the damage they cause to rural communities.
According to the department’s statistics, 18 people have been killed and 13 others injured since last October, compared to 39 fatalities and 18 injured in the previous fiscal year.
In March alone, one park ranger was killed and another injured, in Phu Luang Wildlife Sanctuary in Phetchabun province, and an elderly woman was killed in a durian plantation, about 17km from Khao Kitchakut National Park in Chanthaburi province.
Atthaphon Charoenchansa, the department’s director-general, said that the elephant problem should not only be viewed from the animal conservation perspective, but also from the viewpoint of people impacted by wild elephants.
He said that, on numerous occasions, wild elephants have ventured far from their habitats in search of food, wandering into farms and orchards.
He explained that the money will be used to dig trenches and build barriers, to prevent elephants leaving their habitats. It will also be spent on growing edible plants within their habitats, on increasing manpower to cope with wild elephants leaving their habitats, the setting up of centres to change the behaviour of aggressive elephants and on the development of vaccines to control the elephant population.
Atthaphon disclosed that the department is normally allocated about 190 million baht annually, including 150 million baht in investment budget, to cope with problems caused by elephants and other wildlife.
He noted, however, that the funding falls short of the amount needed to cover the damage now being caused by elephants each year.
