Solar Fence Along India-Bhutan Border Mitigates Human-elephant Conflict

An 18-km-long solar fence erected along the India-Bhutan border helps mitigate human-elephant conflict, protecting over 10,000 people residing in 11 villages in Assam’s Baksa district by keeping away wild pachyderms coming from the Himalayan kingdom.

The barrier, erected on the Indian bank of River Bornadi, which marks the international border, has led to a dip in incidents of wild pachyderms straying into villages and a reduction in deaths due to man-elephant conflict.

“The elephants earlier caused large-scale devastation, destroying our farmlands and food stocks. Around six to seven people used to be trampled to death on average annually by these pachyderms coming from Bhutan in search of food.

“We led our lives in fear and spent sleepless nights when these giants visited the villages. People used to stay indoors after dusk fearing an encounter with the pachyderms,” Bhim Bahadur Chetri, a resident of Pub Guabari village, told PTI.

It became a matter of grave concern and conservationists, wildlife experts and administration, after considerable deliberation, decided to install a solar fence that released weak electric shocks upon contact not leading to the deaths of elephants. The solar fence was erected by bio-diversity organisation ‘Aranyak’ with funding from the Elephant Foundation of India in February 2021. Besides the forest department, which facilitated the entire process, villagers are also stakeholders in the project.