"Canteens" ease tensions between elephants and humans

KUNMING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Environmental workers in southwest China's Yunnan Province have opened a number of "canteens" for wild Asian elephants to reduce conflicts between villagers and the endangered animal.

This year, staff from Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve have created a total of around 100 hectares of the elephant's favorite food, such as bamboo and paper mulberry, in three different sites.

On July 5, a canteen has received its latest guests -- 20 Asian elephants. They enjoyed their meal, which lasted around two hours.

In Pu'er City, more than 253 hectares of sugarcane, bananas and maize have been planted for the elephants.

Authorities hope the open-air canteens can help draw elephants away from human settlements to prevent conflicts between the animal and villagers.

The wild Asian elephant is an endangered species. In China, the animals mainly live in Xishuangbanna, Pu'er and Lincang in Yunnan. The population of the species in China has grown from over 170 in the 1990s to around 300 today.

"The canteens provide a safe place for elephants to munch on food plants far away from villages where they might come into conflict with humans. Fewer elephants seek food in village crop fields now," said Wang Bin, a senior engineer from the nature reserve.


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Elephants gain strong supportin strong support

MIKUMI NATIONAL PARK, Tanzania — The elephant keeled over in the tall grass in Tanzania, where some of the world’s worst poaching has occurred.

It wasn’t killers who targeted her but conservation officials who shot her with a dart of drugs. Soon she was snoring. They slid on a 26-pound GPS tracking collar and injected an antidote, bringing her back to her feet.

The operation was part of a yearlong effort to track 60 elephants in and around Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve, widely acknowledged as “ground zero” in the poaching that has decimated Africa’s elephants.

The Associated Press went there to witness how the battle to save them is gaining momentum, with killings declining and some populations growing again. Legal ivory markets are shrinking worldwide and law enforcement has broken up some trafficking syndicates, experts said.

But it’s too early to declare a turnaround. Poachers are moving to new areas and traffickers are adapting, aided by corruption. The rate of annual elephant losses still exceeds the birth rate. And the encroachment of human settlements reduces the animals’ range.

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