No end to Chakkittappara farmers’ wait for lasting solution to wild elephant menace

Poorly built trenches and damaged solar fences add to their woes

Farmers in  Chempanoda and Chenkottakolly areas say the trenches have a depth of only four metres, which fails to prevent the entry of elephants into human habitations. 

Hundreds of families along the forest borders of Kozhikode’s Chakkittappara panchayat continue their decade-long wait to see an end to the menace of wild elephants straying into their farm lands. Chempanoda, Chenkottakkolly, Poozhithode and Muthukad areas still face the issue because of the weak preventive mechanism adopted by the Forest department.

The faulty construction of a 2.5-km-long trench is one of their concerns now as it can hardly prevent the entry of elephants into farm lands in Chempanoda and Chenkottakolly areas. Because of the poor depth and width, these trenches constructed along the forest area are hardly fit to ward off elephant herds.

Farmers from the area say the trenches hardly have a depth of four metres to prevent the animals’ entry. Many stretches have already caved in without any retaining walls and fortification by concrete, they add. 

“These trenches will serve the purpose only if fortification works are complete. There should be an investigation against the officers who inspected the work,” says a farm organisation leader from the area. He claimed that no maintenance work was carried out in the area within the past four years.

According to local administrators, about 20-km stretch of the agricultural land is surrounded by Malabar Wildlife Sanctuary without proper protection. They also point out that the panchayat alone cannot take up safety works as it require financial support.

Though the Forest Department had attempted to set up solar fences along four kilometres of the vulnerable area, it did not succeed. Also, the completed stretches got damaged because of the failure to carry out regular maintenance work. Though there were promises to resume the installation works, the shortage of funds played spoilsport.

Functionaries of the ‘We Farm‘ farmers’ movement said the proposal later submitted to the department to use the dismantled railway tracks to erect stronger fences also lost steam midway. Though the project was a success along several stretches of the Bandipur forest, the department here backed out of the plan, they say.

The latest suggestion to plant a wild variety of thorny Palmyra saplings along the forest area is also nowhere near execution. Despite the support offered by farmers, there is no proper action on the part of the Forest department. However, officials with the Forest department say they are yet to get sufficient funds to meet farmers’ requests.

Functionaries of the Indian Farmers Movement say many settler families have already sold their land to move in search of better places. According to them, there were 80 families a couple of years ago at Poozhithode, of which 76 moved out to settle in other places.