Hundreds of farmers living in Shangzhai and Hejiazhai villages, Nanping Township in Simao Prefecture of Southwest China's Yunnan Province, gathered on January 25 at a meeting ground shaded by an old banyan tree.

Dressed in their festive best, some performed and the others watched various song and dance programmes and enjoyed the first "dress-up party" of the two neighbouring villages held in the past 20 years.

The party was not the usual sort after the harvest and before Spring Festival, which fell between January 31 and February 15 this year.

Entitled "Love My Home and Co-exist with Elephants - Spring Festival Celebration of the Asian Elephant Project of China," the celebration was jointly organized by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and its local partner, the Forestry Bureau of Simao Prefecture.

The joyful celebration was a well-earned reward for the organizers' three years of hard work.

And for around 1,500 residents of the two villages, it was a rare chance to enjoy their lives, which have been completely changed by five Asian elephants.

Bittersweet memories

To many villagers of this hilly area, about five kilometres south of Simao, memories of the Asian elephants are bittersweet.

At the courtyard of her house nestling on the slope and overlooking the valley, 39-year-old Mei Congxiang told China Daily that the villagers were happy and excited, when an adult bull Asian elephant came to Shangzhai Village in the summer of 1993.

He was at ease when he was close to humans and "cute," she said.

IFAW experts explained that the elephant's relaxed attitude may have meant he was tame.

"At first, we got a chance to watch an elephant with our own eyes," she recalled. "We fed him with sticky rice."

The animal ate in their paddy fields in the day and slept in the forest near the meeting ground at night. He stayed there for one week and left.

To commemorate his visit, two families in the village added a Chinese character "xiang" (elephant) into two of their new born family members' given names.

In 1996, five female Asian elephants - two adults and three calves - moved to Simao from neighbouring Xishuangbanna, the major habitat of about 250 Asian elephants living in the country.

Instead of a short visit, the group chose to settle down on the mountains in the Nanping and Cuiyun townships of Simao. Unlike the first elephant, the five have brought the villagers "elephant disaster" ever since.

"They ate rice, corn, fruit and bamboo shoots and trod on our fields," said Mei Congxiang. In that year, her family harvested only 10 bags of crops, about 40-50 bags less than in the previous year. As a result, the family had to lay waste to 0.2 hectares of dry mountain land for three years.

And the elephants are dangerous. They killed two local people. "When we met them in the nearby mountains on our way to pick mushrooms, they yelled at us," she said. "It was really scary."

The villagers tried a number of means to prevent the elephants from getting any closer to them. They used tractors to make a noise, turned on lights or started fires when the animals approached.

"In the beginning, this would scare them away," she said. "But our attempts became futile when the elephants got used to them."

So a local farmer spent more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,209) to build a one-kilometre-long ditch to protect his bamboo forest in 1999. "But few people can afford such great expense," Mei said.

Finally, the villagers appealed to the local government for compensation. "But a family in our village could only get a maximum of 200 yuan (US$24) from the government per year," she said.

Simao Forestry Bureau official Cao Yigong admitted that the department has an annual budget of only 20,000 yuan (US$2,420) to compensate for locals residents' losses as a result of wild animals. From 1996 to 1999, however, the elephants caused an economic loss of 2.6 million yuan (US$314,390) to people of Nanping Township.

Some villagers began to think about poisoning or shooting the elephants. "We all know the elephant is an animal under protection of the State," she said, explaining that the local residents were getting so desperate that they were prepared to break the law, and face a jail sentence.

This desperation remained until IFAW launched its Asian elephant project in July, 2000 in Simao.

Asian elephant project

A television news report brought the human-elephant conflicts in Simao to the attention of the leading international organization dedicated to protecting animal rights in 1998, Dr Zhang Li, IFAW acting country director for China, said at the project's Simao office.

In the latter half of 1999, IFAW sent a team of experts to Simao and made a comprehensive investigation into habitat conservation of wild Asian elephants in Simao.

"It was mainly an investigation into the five elephants," he said.

According to the biologist, forests of Simao used to be the habitat of wild Asian elephants in China. However, wild Asian elephants hadn't been seen in Simao for 16 years, since the last three wild elephants living in the region were hunted by poachers in 1976.

In the 1990s, wild elephants began to move back to this region from Xishuangbanna, thanks to the improvement of the local environment and an increased forest area. "But only the five elephants are actually the real settlers we knew so far," he said.

Their existence has turned Simao into one of the country's only three prefectures where wild Asian elephants still live. The other two are Xishuangbanna and Lincang, both in Yunnan Province.

"That's why we feel we must help the local government to put them under good conservation," he said.

Unlike those elephants found in Xishuangbanna and Lincang which usually live in nature reserves, however, the five elephants stay in cultivated areas of Simao.

"Even though they can find something to eat on the mountains, which are big enough to shelter five elephants," Zhang said, "they still like finding food around villages because it is better and much easier to get." So the human-elephant conflicts there are extraordinarily intense.

"To create an ideal habitat for the group of elephants, we concluded that we must help the locals resolve the conflicts first," Zhang said.

In April 2000, the Simao Office of the IFAW Simao Asian Elephant Habitat Conservation and Community Development Project was founded in the local forestry bureau. On July 12, the project was formally launched.

The China branch of IFAW decided to invest at least 1.1 million yuan (US$133,010) in the three-year project. "So far we have invested 1.45 million yuan (US$175,330)," said Zhang Li.

The project consists of three programmes: community development, environmental education, and scientific research. Among them, community development has been given special emphasis.

Under the programme, Zhang said, 24 "mutual aid fund teams" were established among 205 households of four trial villages in Nanping and Cuiyun townships, including Hejiazhai Village, in autumn 2000. A "mutual aid fund" with a sum of 164,000 yuan (US$19,830) was given to these teams.

As a result, the local residents' lives and their attitude to the elephants have begun to change.

'Mutual aid fund'

When 26-year-old Luo Jing, from Shangzhai Village heard of the "mutual aid fund" and its way of operation, soon after IFAW and the local forestry department began to promote the micro-loan programme in the neighbouring villages on July 12, 2001, he thought this would benefit his family.

So, when the programme extended to his village in September, 2001, he joined it without hesitation.

He and the other six representatives of six families constituted a "mutual aid fund team."

"We got 5,600 yuan (US$677) from the project, 800 yuan (US$96) for each family as our 'mutual aid fund'," he said. "Meanwhile, each family put 100 yuan (US$12) into the fund to buy a share."

Then each member of the team could apply for a loan of up to 800 yuan (US$96) from the fund to develop the economy of his or her own family. Firstly, the loan would be provided to the applicant in two separate amounts.

"Three months after we got the first half of our loans, people with the project office would come to check out our loan use," the farmer said. "If we could use the money properly, we would get another half of our loans."

On September 30, 2001, Luo said, he got half of his loan of 800 yuan (US$96) from the "mutual aid fund" of his fund team.

He used the money to buy feed for his five pigs. Selling the pigs earned the family more than 2,000 yuan (US$241) in December 2001.

On December 30, 2001, he got another half of his loan and used it to apply fertilizer to the family's 0.267 hectares of tea fields.

Originally the family had only 0.0667 hectares of tea field, he said. "We will expand it to 0.667 hectares for the elephants don't eat tea," he said.

In September 2002, he returned the loan to the fund and paid an extra 40 yuan (US$4.80) in interest. He then applied for another loan of 800 yuan (US$96) for the next year. After getting all of the money, on September 30, 2002, he spent it on purchasing feed for his 26 pigs.

According to the farmer, all participants of eight "mutual aid fund teams" in the village completely returned their loans and paid their interest on their funds.

"It's really not a big sum of money," Luo Jing said. "But, when we discussed how to use it in our group or with people from the project, we found some ways to decrease our loss in the 'elephant disasters'."

People in this area used to make a living by planting rice, corn and fruit. "Now we also grow tea, raise pigs, ducks or fish," he said.

The changing farming methods have increased the local families' income. Luo Jing's family earned more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,210) last year.

The villagers are becoming more used to the elephants.

Luo Jing said he will keep growing corn on some of his family's dry land. "If the elephants can leave some crops for us, we can use it to feed our pigs."

"Anyway, both elephants and we people have the right to live here," Mei Congxiang said.

'Dressing-up' party

The local residents' changing attitude made it really easy for IFAW and the forestry bureau to organize the party celebrating the Chinese lunar new year.

"As a part of our environmental education programme, we designed the celebration to raise local people's awareness of environmental protection and team spirit," said Chen Yaqiong, environmental education expert of the project. "We expected each fund team in the two villages to prepare a programme for it. They did."

And the villagers' enthusiastic responses were even beyond her expectations, she said.

"Many teams had prepared their programmes for two or three weeks," she said. "Some even went to the town and borrowed performing costumes from their relatives.

"I feel that our work is very rewarding."

So Zhang Li has begun to think about continuing the project after it ends in July of this year.

"We're finding a model that enables humans to live with wild elephants in harmony," he said. "We have no reason to stop."

(China Daily February 17, 2003)