ON the day Yogesh became another of the dozens of Indians trampled to death each year, the coffee plantation worker knew from the firecrackers set off nearby that danger was at hand.

The incident happened in the southern state of Karnataka, home to India’s largest elephant population with more than 6,000 jumbos, 20 percent of India’s elephant total. The 48-year-old left behind a wife and two children.

“Everything happened so fast. The elephant suddenly emerged from behind the bushes, trampled him and disappeared,” said his younger brother Girish.

As India’s 1.3 billion population grows, people are encroaching into habitats where until now the elephant, not man, has been king, with painful consequences for both animal and man.

According to the Indian government, 1,100 people have been killed in the previous three years. The elephants, too, are paying a heavy price with around 700 fatalities in the last eight years across the country. Most were killed by electric fences, hit by trains while crossing tracks that cut through migratory routes, or poisoned or shot by local residents.

Karnataka, which is also part of the wider southern region criss-crossed by over 10,000 of these animals that can weigh up to five tonnes, is on the frontline.

“At present, we have an annual death rate of around 30 to 40 people in the state,” said C. Jayaram, Karnataka’s chief wildlife warden.

However, the Indian government, like many other stakeholders in this complex and tragic problem, appears undecided about how to resolve the issue.

“It is very difficult to avoid our population or development pressure,” said a senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Unless these issues are addressed, all of us will just have to learn to live with the reality of such encounters.”

In Karnataka, forest rangers, mounted on elephants themselves, capture problem pachyderm and take them to the Dubare Elephant Camp. Such cases are on the increase.

J.C. Bhaskar, an employee at the camp, described it “like a jail” but it is more of a rehabilitation and training centre.

“We get the place ready before they are captured, we spread hay and leaves beforehand. After the resting period, we start taming and training the elephant.”

Among the “inmates” here, is Surya, the elephant that killed Yogesh and another man. It’s now chained loosely around one ankle to stop it from escaping.

There are 28 elephants at the lush, riverside camp, which draws thousands of tourists each year.

However, while such relocations may assuage local anger, officials and activists acknowledge that it is only a stopgap solution.

The only effective method, according to Vinod Krishnan, an activist with the NGO Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) that works with local communities, is better information sharing.

“Everything else has already been tried unsuccessfully. This includes deep trenches, normal or solar-powered fences and even firecrackers. As you can see, no physical barrier can stop them,” said Krishnan, pointing to the little of what remains of a section of fence at a coffee estate.

His group has developed a simple yet effective system around local villages allowing sightings of elephants to be immediately verified and passed on.

“We set up display boards around key elephant routes and set up SMS services for early warnings about an elephant’s presence, which has significantly reduced such chance encounters,” he said.

This is helped by the exponential jump in the use of mobile phones in India over the past decade, including in remote areas.

But six monthsh after losing his brother, Girish, who fears for his own life, says he still regularly sees herds of elephants around the coffee estate where he works.

“Nothing has changed. Locals can only keep chasing them away until they return as, they, like us, have nowhere else to go.” – AFP, August 3, 2018.