The border area between Nepal and India in the Terai lowlands is a human settlement center and is also home to the wild Asian elephants in Nepal. Through intensified land use and infrastructure construction, the animals increasingly come into conflict with local farmers on their forays. Every year dozens of people living in the buffer zones of the national parks and elephant migration corridors die trying to keep the elephants away from their harvests. Compensation programs for damage caused by wildlife are inadequate and involve high bureaucratic hurdles so that they cannot create lasting acceptance for the coexistence of humans and elephants.

Against this backdrop, the project was originally initiated by Ujyalo Nepal together with the IUCN Nepal and NABU. The Global Nature Fund (GNF) provides technical and financial support and makes this project happen. The GNF involved the Indian partner Nature Environment & Wildlife Society (NEWS), with whom close cooperation exists since 2016 and it helps to discuss cross-border aspects of elephant protection. The basic idea of the proposed project is to change the attitude and behavior of humans towards elephants through training, awareness program, using mass communication. Besides, the project envisages reducing the conflicts between humans and elephants through an early warning system and improve the capacities of the authorities to monitor elephants and to intervene quickly in conflicts with farmers.

Objectives

The main objective of the project is to improve the safety and protection of the local population's harvests through a harmonious coexistence between humans and wild Asian elephants.

The specific objectives are:

1. To pilot the early warning system in the human-elephant conflict-prone area of Khata corridor of Bardia and Madi area of Chitwan.

2. To form the elephant protection group and train them in changing the behavior of the local population.

3. To raise awareness among the local population through mass communication

4. To enhance the capacity of stakeholders, protected area authorities, elephant protection groups for the use of conflict management tools.

5. To evaluate the effectiveness of existing conflict mitigation approaches provides a recommendation to incorporate into the management plans.

1.3 Project site

The project area is located in two different areas particularly affected by human/elephant conflict: i) Khata corridor of Bardia and ii) Madi area of Chitwan. The nearest settlements in the Khata Corridor are Dalla, Naurangha, Bhajpur, Dandagaun, Patharbhoji, Manaughat, and Khata. The majority of the people living in this area are Tharu (an original indigenous community of Nepal who calls themselves "People of the Forest"). The people in this area are largely poor and dependent on the use of natural resources. The tasks which are taken over by the women usually include collecting firewood, grass, and reed as building materials, harvesting cultivated field crops, and looking after the children and the fireplace in the house. Traditionally, the women enjoy a stronger role and a higher reputation within the indigenous Tharu communities than in the non-indigenous communities of the surrounding area.

The project's target group is represented by the Khata Community Forest Coordination Committee (CFCC), which includes 34 local Community Forest Users' groups. These associations represent 3245 user households with an estimated population of 22,000 people. The Madi is a historically and culturally important valley with large settlements of Ayodhyapuri, Kalyanpur, Gardi, and Baghauda. The total population (indirect target group) of the municipality of Madi is about 43,000 people in about 8,600 households. The majority of the inhabitants of Madi also belong to the Tharu (indigenous community of Nepal). Agriculture is the people's main source of income, followed by trade, services, wage labor, and animal husbandry.