Fundraiser: Elephant Barrier Around the Fields

Barrier around fields against elephants will reduce mutual conflict

The elephant is the world's largest herbivore and consumes over 100 kg of food a day. When it has the opportunity, it will not disdain nutritious crops from the fields of African farmers, and such a picnic can put a local farmer out of business. This creates a hostile mood towards elephants, which can escalate into collaboration with poachers or a brutal solution to protect the fields from elephants. Save-Elephants offers smallholder communities in Congo a way to peacefully prevent conflict by working together to protect parts of their fields from elephants with an electric barrier.

Critically endangered forest elephants in the southern Congo region of the Tsoulou Reserve, where Save-Elephants has been working for several years, repeatedly come to farmers' fields. Their usually nocturnal visit brings eaten or trampled cassava or maize crops, and relations between them and humans are on a knife-edge. In one village, we already built the first solar-powered electric barrier in late 2022, which is still functioning today. Now we need to extend the pilot project to a neighbouring community.

Protecting all the fields from elephants by night patrols (and by using noise, gunshots and fires) is not within the means of local peasants, and only a more sophisticated solution can bring the desired assurance that at least some of the fields will be safe from elephants. The selected community is well known to Save-Elephants and they are guaranteed a good reception of the project.

The cost of creating an additional barrier to protect several hectares of farmers' fertile land mainly includes the purchase of electrical installation and guide wires. They will also build a small hut from local bricks as a base and local people will participate in erecting the poles and tensioning the wires.

In collaboration with the local managers of the neighbouring barrier, a team will also be trained here to maintain the installation while documenting both the use of the protected area by local farmers and any visits and reactions of the forest elephants. 

Support Save-Elephants 

For CZK 55 000 they will be able to build a barrier that will protect the endangered elephants by reducing contact with humans and their crops.

We send 100% of the collected donations to Save-Elephants, who takes care of everything.