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Botswana: Chillie-Ing Out With Elephants
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
11 June 2007
Posted to the web 11 June 2007
Nomsa Ndlovu
A huge pilot project in which the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) wants to mitigate conflict between people and elephants is soon to be grounded in the Northwest District.
District Wildlife Coordinator (DMC), Sibangane Mosojane says research shows that growing a special type of chilli pepper, suitable for making Tabasco chilli sauce, as a buffer along the fence of a field has proven to be an effective method in repelling elephants from raiding crops.
The hot taste of the chilli pepper fruits irritates the jumbos whereas its smell, raw, crushed or burnt acts as a repellent.
So far Cameroon, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are leading experts in using the method, Mosojane said.
Zambians are now not only growing the chilli pepper as elephant repellent but also as a cash crop whose market they have established with the Tabasco Sauce producing company in America.
"Therefore all our farmers who are going to use the idea are not only going to benefit from the plant's elephant repelling effects but it will be setting up a business opportunity with huge financial returns," he said.
Mosojane said that Botswana first introduced the chilli buffer idea to its farmers in 2005. Initially, the DWNP held a workshop in Gumare village where a Zambia, expert was called in to empower farmers on how to implement the method in their fields.
Farmers were given the pepper seeds to start the trial project on a stream field. However, according to the DWC, most of the participants did not grow their seeds except for three farmers in the villages of Sepopa, Etsha 3 and Gunotsoga.
He reported that since then, the three 'wise' men have enjoyed a good harvest while their counterparts who despised the method continue being terrorised by the elephants.
Asked about the period of effectiveness, Mosojane said that none such data has been established so far.
"We do not know for how long but what we have proven is that once the elephants eat the pepper or inhale it, the smell irritates them and they completely move away from the field.
"Elephants do not forget a scene where they were once offended. In this we hope that the method would be a life long mitigating measure."
Monitor also learnt that the method works best for farmers whose fields are situated along waterlogged places.
Such areas are not only best for the growth of chillies but they are good experimental zones because of the vast number of elephants that are found there.
However, other methods are at hand for crop growers who own none-stream fields. Research, according to the coordinator, has shown that hanging a string of sisal and mutton cloth soaked in chilli-oil - mutton cloth twine - or burning chilli dung bricks - elephant dung mixed with chilli fruits - can also repel the big beasts.
Mosojane also revealed that his department would soon start a close to 1.5 million pilot project to cover three major conflict hotspots, namely Gumare-Mohembo, Mogotlho-Eretsha, and Mawana-Shorobe-Chanoga area.
A total of 45 crop fields will be selected for the pilot project where the mitigation measures will be tried in 30 fields while the remaining 15 will be set aside as experimental controls.
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The guiding conditions for choosing a field will be the location of the field with respect to the water source and elephant movement corridors, the history of crop damage and the commitment of the farmer.
"We are doing this in order for farmers to prove from those in their areas that the mitigation methods are effective. To us the success of the project will not only resolve the issue of human-elephant conflict in the Northwest district and other parts of the country but will also reduce vast amounts of compensation costs that our department annually incurs".
From January to April this year, Mosojane asserted, the DWNP has used close to half a million as compensation to farmers whose fields have been raided by the Jumbo sized beasts.
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| Copyright © 2007 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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