Many farmers in the southern province of Dong Nai have continued to lose their crops to wild elephants seeking food while local authorities are trying to complete the electric fences around the forest to avoid human-elephant conflicts.
According to residents in Ta Lai Commune, Tan Phu District, their rice fields near a local forest have been destroyed by wild elephants seeking food over the past month.
"The elephants have come out from Nam Cat Tien Forest to our area which has not been fenced yet," a local man, Ka Tuan, said. "They've come to our rice fields which are near harvest time. We've had to stay in the fields at night using gongs and drums to drive the wild animals away to protect our fields but they seem very dangerous. One of them chased us on December 8."
The man said that the elephants usually arrive at the 200-hectare rice field in the late afternoon to eat the rice.
"Lots of the rice area has been destroyed by them," Tuan said. "Some farmers have had to collect their rice early to avoid it being damaged by the wild animals."
Vice chairman of Ta Lai Commune People's Committee, Dang Son Lam, said that they had sent a team to help local residents chase the animals back to the forest.
"We've also reported the problems to the management board of Cat Tien National Park, asking for the quick completion of the electric fence in this area," the official said.
Dong Nai started to build a 50-kilometre electric fence around the Cat Tien National Park in 2017 to protect the wild elephants and avoid human-elephant conflicts.
In late 2021, an additional 25 kilometres of electric fence was continued to be built but has not been completed due to site clearance issues. The wild animals have managed to exploit this gap.
