Precis

Our Indian cameraman Gurmeet saw the attack as he fled…

“I saw a cloud of dust, one elephant charging over one man, and that man got under the feet of the elephant. We thought ‘This dude is dead’”

The man under the elephant was our local guide, Sanu. Amazingly he survived, with just a few scratches.

“My feet slipped… the elephant hit me. I’m lucky, or I’d be dead by now,” Sanu explains to his wife. “Why were you such a show-off?” she snaps.

Danger is ever-present in Assam state in India’s north east, where 6000 elephants live among 30 million people. The animals’ forest habitat is being sliced up for new rice paddies, tea plantations, roads and villages. Their old migratory trails, up to 1000 kilometres long, are strewn with man-made obstacles.

So the big herds are hemmed in, with nowhere to go. They raid villages and crops for food.  They kill and terrify local people. Last year in Assam state alone, elephants killed at least 64 people.

Elephants are sacred in India and evoke the image of the popular Hindu deity Ganesh. But patience is thin among farmers when entire rice harvests are destroyed.

“Yes, they’re hungry but we’re hungry too,” says Sharayan Bodo, who guards his crop at night armed with a crude spear.  “Lord Ganesh is a god, but elephants are not.”

As correspondent Siobhan Heanue discovers, the elephants are taunted nearly everywhere they go as crowds of locals pelt them with rocks, firecrackers and shot pellets. Sometimes they move on, as intended. Sometimes they attack.

“I’m still shaking from the noise and ferocity of something that big coming towards you,” says Heanue, after fleeing an angry female elephant which had been separated from her calf.

“Due to the encounters with humans, the elephants have changed their behaviour,” says conservationist and filmmaker Rita Banarji. “They are more aggressive than they used to be.”

Despite the conflict and a recent fall in India’s elephant population, Banarji is determinedly optimistic. She sees a “win-win situation” ahead and sets out how to strike a delicate balance between the needs of people and those of the giants that roam among them.

Episode tease. GFX:
Foreign Correspondent

Music

00:00

Siobhan in field

SIOBHAN HEANUE: “I hear them trumpeting, they’re really close”.

00:13

V/O:  The giants of the forest and the men trying to control them.

00:16

Local men with spears and guns/Villagers run

Music

00:25

Elephants give chase

Tonight, on the frontline, where elephants and humans collide.

00:34

Gurmeet 100%

GURMEET SAPAL: “We thought that this dude is dead”.

00:43

GFX:  Foreign Correspondent

00:47

GVs Village life. Morning bathing

Music

00:53

GFX: Assam State, India

01:03

Elephants in field. GFX:
Man vs Wild

01:12

GFX:  Reporter:  Siobhan Heanue

01:20

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  In one of the world’s most populous countries, there are places where wild animals roam. 

01:27

Rhinoceros, water buffalo

This is the far north-east corner of India.  We’ve come to investigate a deadly conflict. 

01:35

Villagers fire at migrating elephants

There are nearly 6,000 elephants here and 30 million people. They’re having trouble co-existing.

01:45

Rita interview. Super:
Rita Banerji
Conservationist

RITA BANERJI: [Conservationist] “So elephants, by their natural behaviour, migrate through these long distances, sometimes from 600 kilometres to 1000 kilometres, from one forest area to the other”.

02:01

Migrating elephants/ workers in field

Music

02:11

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Elephants like to use the same trails year after year.  Increasingly though human obstacles are in the way – villages and towns, tea plantations and rice fields.  In Assam state alone elephants killed 70 people last year. The elephant death toll was remarkably similar, up to 70, Indian officials say.

02:19

Rita interview

RITA BANERJI: “From the month of September to December every year, every day, almost every part, not only in the east of India but other parts of India, you have elephant and human encounters. Like this year there have been so many deaths of humans as well as elephants”.

02:48

Drone shots. Nameri jungle camp

SIOBHAN HEANUE: We’ve based ourselves in the Nameri jungle camp, in the Sonitpur district.  Elephant watching is a growing business.

03:07

Siobhan in camp to camera, into jeep

[in camp] “We’ve just heard, on the bush telegraph if you like, there’s s a massive herd of elephants that’s come into a tea plantation not far from here. Some people say 40, some people have told us 60 or more, so we’re going to go now and see if we can find them”.

03:16

Jeep leaves camp with Sanu

Music

03:31

Sanu driving

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Our guide, Sanu Bhuyan, knows how to track the roaming herds.

03:39

Driving shots

Music

03:43

Siobhan in car

SIOBHAN HEANUE: “So as you can imagine, Assam is full of tea plantations and while elephants don’t actually eat the tea, they use the plantations as thoroughfares on their way to and from other habitats where they do munch on food, they use them to rest in the middle of the day”.

03:48

Sanu driving. Siobhan in jeep

“Sanu, what are they saying?”

04:04

SANU BHUYAN: “They are saying the elephant herd is still here”.

04:06

SIOBHAN HEANUE: “So we could see… could be as many as 60 elephants which will be an incredible sight”.

04:08

Driving shots

Music

04:15

Local men with Siobhan and Sanu

LOCAL MAN: “Many elephants are there, around a hundred”.

04:30

SANU BHUYAN: “Is it possible to see them?  Are they hiding?”

LOCAL MAN: “It is possible”.

SANU BHUYAN: “OK”.

04:35

Driving to elephants

Music

04:45

Workers in tea plantation.

04:50

Drone shot. Driving through tea plantation

SIOBHAN HEANUE: It takes us more than an hour of searching this plantation to find the herd. 

04:58

Elephant herd in plantation

Music

05:17

Young men and children gather and tease elephants

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Young men and children of the plantation workers have flocked to see the animals. 

05:20

It’s not just a spectator sport. They’re teasing the elephants.

05:30

Music

05:36

Sanu and Siobhan watch elephants

SANU BHUYAN: “They have no knowledge about elephants.  So they do it like it’s fun”.

SIOBHAN HEANUE: “They do it for fun, but it’s dangerous.”

SANU BHUYAN: “Yes, very dangerous”.

05:57

Elephants

Music

06:07

SIOBHAN HEANUE: The stand-off continues for hours. 

06:13

Forestry Dept officers arrive, spread out through plantation, fire at elephants

Finally, officers from the Forestry Department turn up. 

06:27

There doesn’t appear to be much of a plan, other than to scare the herd off.

06:52

Elephant charges truck. Man fires with rubber pellets.

What you’re about to see is disturbing.  An elephant guarding her calf, feels threatened and charges a forestry truck.  She’s shot in the face with rubber pellets.

07:00

Drone shot over tea plantation

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  Crisis point has been reached in Assam. 

07:26

GVs Village building

Tropical forest that once covered the state has been slashed. Large scale tea and rice farming is shrinking the elephants’ habitat.

07:32

Drone shot over rice fields

So, too, a growing population and rapid industrialisation.

07:45

Rita interview

RITA BANERJI: “Earlier, there were continuous forests from one area to the other and the migratory path of the elephant is called the elephant corridor, and it’s the same corridor that they use year by year. And now, all those corridors are broken, so while they’re trying to walk the same path, they come across a city, they come across a road, they come across a town, but they want to go the same way”.

08:00

Rita in office at computer looking at Green Hub elephant footage

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  Rita Banerji runs the conservation group Green Hub, and she’s spent her life trying to ease the conflict between animals and humans. 

08:23

Green Hub footage of elephants in rice field

A local filmmaker trained by Green Hub shot these images of a huge herd that spent nearly a week in a single paddy field. Trying to get from one forest remnant to another - and tempted by ripe rice - the herd was trapped.

08:33

Rita interview

RITA BANERJI: “The situation with the development and with the forests going has become so tough; we don’t know whose space is it anymore.  Like you know, we don’t know whether it’s for the elephants or the people.

08:54

Drone shot over forest

We are not looking at the forest which used to be there and traditionally the corridor which the elephant used to take.

09:05

GVs people in town

So now those same areas have a road, the same area has development and so the elephants are still walking the same path”.

09:13

Men on tea plantation with guns pursue elephants

LOCAL MAN: “We have to be very quick.  It will be difficult in the dark.  Please bring a torch”

09:23

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Back at the tea plantation, the battle to drive out the herd of mostly mothers and calves, isn’t over yet.  As night falls, the forest rangers are still pushing them out of the crop.

09:29

Siobhan to camera at tea plantation. Super:
Siobhan Heanue

“So this is an ugly chaotic scene. There’s a huge herd of elephants that’s been basically harangued and harassed all day long.  The herd’s already been dispersed from within the tea plantation and now they’re basically just chasing them”.

09:44

Villagers run

09:59

Ranger 100%

FOREST RANGER: “We are trying to direct the herd. It’s dense forest in there.  We are trying our best”.

10:02

Farmer fires homemade gun

SIOBHAN HEANUE: For local farmers it’s just another frustrating night. 

10:16

Siobhan walks with rangers

From what we could see the forest rangers have an impossible job.  There’s too few of them.  They’re poorly equipped and under-funded.

10:24

Farmer interview

LOCAL FARMER: “The Government must take the initiative.  Our area is very big and the forestry staff and resources are not sufficient”.

10:33

Men and boys chase elephants

RITA BANERJI: “Due to the encounters with humans

10:43

Rita 100%

where firecrackers are used, gunshots are used, sometimes people try and go close to the elephants, throw stones at them. Even elephants have changed their behaviour, you know? They are more aggressive than they used to be”.

10:47

Village GVs.  Farmers ploughing

Music

11:02

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  Assam is blessed and cursed.  The land is fertile and when the crop is good, these villagers can keep poverty away.  But the marauding elephants test the patience of farmers who have no other way to make a living.

11:08

Workers in rice field

As the sun goes down, elephants like to move into the paddy fields. 

11:27

Das on motorbike

For subsistence rice farmers, dusk is the time when they have to be most alert.

11:33

Das climbing to tree house

11:43

DWIJEN DAS: “Many nights I stay awake waiting for the elephants.

12:00

Das interview

Sometimes when they don’t come I fall asleep.  While I was sleeping they came at 1 am or 2 am and they ate the crops.  I missed it because I was sleeping. 

12:06

Rice field. Night

Music

12:18

DWIJEN DAS: Yes, it’s scary.  But what can I do? They’re destroying our whole crops. 

12:27

Das interview

I look after the crops without caring for my life”.

12:31

Night. Searching for herd

12:37

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  The elephants are on the move tonight.  Winter, when the rice is ripe and the nights are cold, is peak conflict time.

12:43

Siobhan to camera by fire

“It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s dangerous and there’s a sense of chaos as people yell at each other, ‘Where’s the herd?  Where’s the herd? Where are they going next?”

12:53

People on bikes, in car, tracking herd

13:01

Constant tracking of the herd is essential to keep them away from sleeping villagers.

13:09

Elephants. Morning

Music

13:24

Trampled rice field

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  The next morning the damage in the nearby rice fields is easy to see as you might expect from a herd of elephants. 

13:32

Drone shot. Trampled rice field

From above, it’s even clearer.  A neat, cultivated patchwork of pasture and paddy, now pot-holed by enormous feet.
“So just to give you a sense of scale…

13:40

Siobhan in rice field showing elephant footprint size

that is one elephant’s footprint, so you can imagine what happens when this thing comes thundering through people’s fields, sometimes their homes”.

13:53

Train shots, railway line

14:03

We get word of a herd harassing a group of farmers just a few minutes away by a railway line. We don’t quite know what we’re in for.

14:10

Siobhan running down path

 “Oh, wow, I can hear them trumpeting they’re really close.  Bloody hell”.

14:21

Men throw rocks at elephant

It turns out to be one very agitated elephant.

14:28

LOCAL MAN: “This elephant is separated from its baby. 

14:45

Man on railway line with spear

It’s been roaming here for two or three days.  The elephant is very angry”.

SANU BHUYAN: "Is that Mr. Suresh?"

14:52

Sanu on phone to Forestry Department

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Our guide Sanu tries to prod the Forestry Department to diffuse the confrontation.

15:00

SANU BHUYAN: “An elephant is isolated on the other side of the electric fence.  Is it possible to open the fence to allow the elephant to cross to the other side to join with the main group?  Otherwise it will create problems, the elephant has become very ferocious”.

15:05

Men on railway line throwing rocks.

SIOBHAN HEANUE: While they wait on a forestry official, farmers use homemade weapons and rocks to discourage the elephant from coming any closer.

15:24

Elephant begins to run at group before turning away

Music

15:42

Siobhan to camera on railway line

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  “I’m still shaking just from the noise and the ferocity and the size of something that big coming towards you, and these guys basically stared it down with nothing but homemade spears, and they just stood their ground until it left”.

16:03

Sanu and Siobhan

SANU BHUYAN: “They’re brave and crazy, both.  Because they have to save their paddy field and save themselves, his body also, from the wild elephant, the ferocious wild elephant”.

16:20

SIOBHAN HEANUE: “Are you feeling shaken?”

SANU BHUYAN: “Yeah”.

SIOBHAN HEANUE: “Yeah.  Heart beating?”

SANU BHUYAN: “Yeah”.

SIOBHAN HEANUE: “Mine, too”.

16:30

Elephant. Bottles strung on wire

SIOBHAN HEANUE: The only thing separating the farmers from the elephants that roam here is a railway line and a primitive early warning system. 

16:38

Shayaran and man in rice paddy

Day and night, men like Shayaran Bodo must defend their rice crop from hungry invaders.

16:50

Shayaran and man standing on railway line

SHAYARAN BODO: “If I don’t drive them away it will make it very difficult for my livelihood.  So I need to drive them away from my crop. 

17:02

Villagers carry wood

Music

17:15

SHAYARAN BODO:  The elephants’ food has become scarce in the jungle.

17:22

Shayaran

That is why they are coming out of the forest to our houses. They eat banana trees and even bags of rice and destroy everything”.

14:30

Man pats elephant

SIOBHAN HEANUE: People here have traditionally revered elephants.  In Indian culture, especially Hinduism, elephants are sacred, the living incarnation of the God Ganesh.

17:43

Ganesh worship

RITA BANERJI: “Lord Ganesh is a big symbol here. When you start something new you always worship the Ganesh.

17:59

Rita interview

We felt blessed that our first film was on elephants, you know?

18:17

Ganesh statuary

So yes, you know, people have a lot of reverence for the elephant, but we cannot be comfortable with that idea

18:21

Rita

because there are now, with the kind of suffering people are having, there is anger”.

18:28

Shayaran interview at railway line

SHAYARAN BODO: “They are our god and yet they are hungry.  But we are hungry as well.  Ganesh Baba exists!  Ganesh is our god.  But these elephants are not god”.

18:34

Green Hub footage. Electrocuted elephant. Villagers lay marigolds on corpse

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Elephants are just as susceptible to the dangers posed by the sprawling growth of towns and villages.  The young filmmakers from the conservation group Green Hub documented what happened when an elephant ploughed into a power line and was electrocuted.

18:50

Local man

LOCAL MAN: “I don’t get any paddy rice on my farm because of elephants. But I’m less concerned about my loss.  I just want the elephants to be safe”.

19:38

Electrocuted elephant/Men with Forestry official

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  While there’s sympathy for the animals, there’s frustration, too, at what they see as the impotence of the forest department.

19:51

Local man interview

LOCAL MAN: “We request them to drive the elephants out from here, to take them far from here and provide us protection from the herd.  Otherwise we’re not safe.  This is my request to the forest minister. Please do something”.

20:06

Earthmoving equipment

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Villagers worry their electricity supply won’t be restored quickly so they refuse to let the elephant go.

20:24

Villagers with forestry official

LOCAL MAN: “You can’t take the elephant.  We won’t let you! Another elephant will die here. Another man will die”.

20:37

Elephant corpse being removed from paddy field

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Only after the authorities reconnect the electricity, do they let the body be taken away. Electrocution is one of the main causes of death of elephants.  They’re also hit by speeding trains and sometimes poisoned.    850 people in Assam alone in the last 10 years.

20:55

Siobhan walks down path to farm

Even so, many more people are killed by elephants. 850 people in Assam alone in the last ten years.

21:19

We walked for several kilometres to a farm where we’d been told about a recent killing.

21:33

Siobhan greets farmer and family

“Namaste, namaste.  Nice to meet you. Thank you for having us”.

21:43

Rice farmer Deboras Buwari is now head of an extended family that’s been traumatised by an elephant encounter. 

21:48

Siobhan walks with Buwari to fields

He wants to show me the field where his father was attacked.

21:57

DEBORAS BUWARI: “My father was sleeping here when the elephant came from there and attacked him.  The elephant dragged my father from here to there. When I shouted my father made an “argh” sound.  I picked him up from there and took him to his home”.

22:02

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Mr Buwari tells me his father was alive when he found him, but he died before he could get medical help. 

22:22

I ask him if he feels anger towards the elephant?

22:30

Buwari interview

DEBORAS BUWARI: “What’s the benefit of getting angry at elephants? I’m upset.  The crop we had was enough to feed my family for an entire year. Now we have very little.  This makes me angry.  But what can I do?”

22:34

Rice in courtyard

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  After a good harvest this whole courtyard would be full.

22:54

Siobhan and Buwari in courtyard looking at meagre rice supply

“So this is maybe one month or two months of food?”

DEBORAS BUWARI: “This is not even enough for two months”.

22:29

Wife sweeps yard/Buwari bundles rice

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Mr Buwari says he’ll have to find work as a day labourer on other people’s farms to earn enough money to buy food.  He thinks he’ll be too scared next season to go alone into his own field to protect his crop.

23:08

Couple on motorbike/Cars on road

Living among elephants will always be dangerous, even for those who think they understand the animals.

23:25

Sanu driving. Siobhan in jeep

We’re on our way to link up with forest rangers. This time they’ve been tasked with driving out a small herd that’s trampling through an army outpost.

23:33

Men at army camp. Sanu enters jungle. Crackers go off

23:47

FOREST RANGER: “Be careful, it is very difficult to run away.  There is thick undergrowth”.

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Sanu, our elephant expert, heads deep into vegetation to find them.

23:58

LOCAL MAN: “Keep firing.  Keep bursting crackers!

FOREST RANGER: “Elephants are moving!”

24:07

Gurmeet running down road with camera

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Cameraman, Gurmeet Sapal, saw what happened.

GURMEET SAPAL: “I just saw a cloud of dust, and one elephant charging

24:25

Gurmeet interview

over one man, and that man got under the feet of the elephant. We thought that this dude is dead. There’s no way, you know, anyone can come alive from that attack.

24:32

Sanu returns, walking down road

And that was Sanu. He was very lucky”.

WITNESS: “Sanu are you ok?  Let’s go and get treatment”.

24:47

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Fortunately, his injuries were relatively minor.

24:55

Sanu receives treatment for injury

SANU BHUYAN: “When I came too close to the elephant

24:59

Sanu interview

my feet slipped and then I fell on the ground.  Then he came close to me and he pushed me with his head.  I was feeling in that moment his skin, his rough skin”.

25:08

Sanu with wife on street by car

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  Sanu has some trouble explaining his near-death experience to his wife.

SANU’S WIFE: “What happened to your hand?  Did you fall over?”

SANU BHUYAN: “I fell down.  The elephant hit me and chased me away”.

SANU’S WIFE: “Why were you such a show-off?”

SANU BHUYAN: “I’m lucky, otherwise I would be a dead body”.

25:26

SANU’S WIFE: “Why did you go so close?”

25:50

SANU BHUYAN: “I had a shotgun”.

SANU’S WIFE: “So what?  Is it wise to go near a herd with one or two shotguns?”

25:52

SANU BHUYAN: “OK, I’m off.  I’ll call you”.

25:59

Monkeys on road as car passes

Music

26:02

Elephants

SIOBHAN HEANUE: Seeing wild elephants up close is a great privilege. As a visitor you can’t help wanting them to flourish.

26:09

Elephant corridor signage. People on railway line looking for elephants

While we’ve seen big herds locally, nationwide, the

26:20

Elephants eating

elephant count numbers almost 28,000, after decades of decline.  Conservationists aren’t giving up. Better planning they say can help people co-exist with the elephants.

26:27

Rita interview. Super:
Rita Banerji
Conservationist

RITA BANERJI: “There’s a big plan across India to actually to revive the elephant corridors.

26:43

Drone shot over rice fields and bushland

It does not mean that you try and get everything back, but really study where the corridors were and see if the corridors can be revived”.

26:49

Workers harvesting rice

Music

27:04

Drone shot. Workers in rice field

SIOBHAN HEANUE:  Ever expanding rice and tea plantations provide work and income, but they eat away at forest habitat. Now though, some people are beginning to make room for the elephants.

RITA BANERJI: “In another area

27:13

Rita interview

an elephant corridor has been created by convincing the people to move out of that area and they’ve got rehabilitated so that area is now a free forest corridor between two big forest areas, so that’s become a free path for elephants to move. And so it reduces the conflict. People are in a better position because they’re in an area where they can do agriculture now. They have better houses. So it’s a win, win situation”.

27:32

School kids waiting on their bikes

Music

27:56

SIOBHAN HEANUE: These children will be late for school today. Their forest guard has heard there’s an elephant up ahead --it’s not safe.

28:02

Kids get moving again

Finally, word comes through that the elephant has moved away and the bike corridor is clear again for now.

28:12

Forest guard on motorbike accompanies school children

The ranger only has a stick and a shotgun to protect hundreds.  This generation of students will have to find some creative solutions to the daily problem of living with elephants.

28:23

Credits start over:

Presenter - Siobhan Heanue

Producer - Greg Wilesmith

Researcher - Anne Worthington

Camera - Gurmeet Sapal

Additional Camera - Green Hub

Editor - Leah Donovan

Executive Producer - Matthew Carney

Foreign Correspondent
abc.net.au/foreign

©2019

28:44

Outpoint

29:21