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On Chiles and Elephants
A pretty interesting story about how
farmers in Africa are using chilies to ward off elephants to protect their crops. Turns out the pesky pachyderms
haven't acquired a taste for hot stuff, and so in the Zambezi valley in southern Zambia, the farmers make a paste out
of the chilies and spread the stuff on fences and places they want the elephants to avoid.
The problem is actually due to the successful
recovery of elephant populations in the region. According to a recent study, elephant populations have grown to 355,000
from 283,000 in the five years to 2002. The result is that over the last few years, elephants and farmers have come
into closer contact with one another as growing elephant populations put pressure on the farmer's efforts to grow
crops. The elephants wreak major damage on crops, and have been known to wipe out the annual harvests of entire
villages. This is bad news for the rural poor who are barely surviving as it is. The solution is a good one when you
consider that sometimes the farmers kill elephants, which isn't cool. You gotta like it when such a simple solution can
help alleviate a serious problem.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Andrew Playford Dec 18th 2005 5:08PM
The problem with Elephants is that they don't stay where they are told. I was raised in Zimbabwe where elephants were protected game but they were causing major devastation in the country's largest game reserves. By "devastation" I mean they were mowing down trees like there was no tomorrow. They knock them over so they can reach the leaves at the top, have a few muches, then knock the next one down..
Anyway the problem has now been solved by the Robert Mugabe Government. After having confiscated all the productive farmlands for his political cronies the country is now starving, so as a solution they moved into the game reserves and slaughtered all the animals for their meat.
Sorry for the sad story.
Andrew Playford
http://thegiftblog.com