Villagers in Bago make watch-towers to protect paddy fields destroying elephants

Villagers from Bago Region have set up watch-towers this year to protect their paddy crops from destroying wild elephants. Elephants have been entering paddy fields from 16 November, said villagers.

“This year, the number of elephants invading the paddy fields has declined compared to last year. The elephants usually come to feed on paddy crops around midnight. Therefore, we have constructed watch-towers to drive them away. We will finish harvesting paddy by the end of this month,” said U Mya Maung from Milaunggone Village in the Kywepoke Village-tract.

“The officials set up electric fences around fields and conducted awareness training to prevent human-elephant conflicts this year. The government is aware that the number of wild elephants in Myanmar has declined. According to official statistics, Myanmar’s total wild elephant population stands at 1,000 at present. Many elephants are being killed in the Ayeyawady Region as well as in regions near the Bago Yoma. Authorities have asked villagers to inform Nay Pyi Taw directly if they see any elephant hunters,” said a member of a wildlife protection group.

Cooperation between villagers residing near Bago Yoma, law enforcement officials, and conservationists has increased recently, resulting in fewer elephant killings, he said.

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Refugees Fleeing Violence In Myanmar Have A New Worry: Elephants

KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh ― Around midnight on Jan. 19, a heavy sound jolted Anwar Begum out of her sleep. Something was breaking down the bamboo beams holding up her makeshift hut in a refugee camp for displaced Rohingya in southeastern Bangladesh. Her husband, Yakub Ali, thought it was someone trying to break in.

Suddenly, the central pillar broke, hitting Begum in the head.

Dazed, she pulled herself out from under the collapsed hut. Once outside, she realized that it wasn’t a person destroying their house but an elephant. As the massive animal lunged again, Begum squeezed between its legs and ran to safety. Her screams had woken up the neighbors, who helped save Begum’s two young children from the rubble.


Her husband wasn’t as lucky. When Begum looked back inside her demolished home, there were splinters of bamboo sticking out of his body. “Blood was flowing everywhere,” she said in a recent interview.

Begum, 40, is one of more than 688,000 Rohingya who have been forced out of Myanmar’s western Rakhine State and into neighboring Bangladesh since Aug. 25, 2017. Although the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, have lived in Rakhine for centuries, the Myanmar government does not recognize them as citizens, and the violence against them has escalated over the last eight months. Many Rohingya have sought shelter in Bangladesh.

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