According to The Beijing News, wild elephants broke into Mengman Township, Yunnan Province on December 6, 2008. They have trampled more than 20 people to death since 1998. There is controversy surrounding the use of local land for rubber plantations.
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A rubber factory worker cuts a tree's bark to kill it off and replace it with rubber trees.
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Environmentalists believe that this is related to the development of the local rubber plantation industry, and encroachment onto the elephants' habitat. Deforestation also absorbs a large amount of underground water, damaging the balance of the local ecology.
Local government has begun implementing a policy of returning rubber plantations to natural forest, in order to prevent rogue plantation and establish ecological corridors for wild animals.
He Jinghua, a primary school teacher in Mengman Town, repeatedly warns his students not to go home alone. On one occasion he was startled to encounter six elephants on nearby farm land. "They were lying in the sun, bellowing like foghorns."
Serious damages have been caused recently: Three months ago groups of elephants lay on the road to stop traffic for one week; others plundered grain and attacked villagers late last year; elephants have spoiled reclaimed marshland and paddy, corn, and sugarcane fields; there have been incidences of trampling villagers and damaging facilities such as concrete poles and other equipment.
11 of 14 cases involving physical attacks have taken place in Mengla County in Yunnan, which is located between two nature reserves. Electric fences, anti-elephant walls, and anti-elephant ditches have been tried in the county, but have failed to stop the huge animals.
In the past, people regarded the elephant as their protector. A local villager, Wu Dabing, tells an old tale: when ancestors of Dai nationality lived at Xishuangbanna they were often attacked by tigers and leopards; then a wise elder taught people to plant bamboos and plantains to attract elephants, which became the villagers' protectors. However, the holy animal has now become evil.
