A few months ago, Kumar, who lives on my farm in Kodaikanal, shared a piece of news that I have held close to my heart, letting it warm me every time I needed it. A mother and her baby elephant walked onto the farm in the middle of the day, where she fed her infant till the child fell asleep.A beautiful little story that casually assumes the many years it took to gain the trust of a mother elephant to allow her child to fall asleep in human-occupied land. She was teaching her baby that the farm was a safe space. In a fast-changing world, where elephants are being forced to change their ancient migratory routes because of human development, it felt like a milestone.
Elephants in Kerala
| Photo Credit:
K.K.NAJEEB
When I first bought the farm, wide-eyed and ruthlessly optimistic, I thought sharing the border with Tamil Nadu’s Anamalai Reserve Forest, home to the Bengal tiger, Indian elephant, gaur, leopard and several other endangered species, was hugely romantic. I relished my self-proclaimed title as ‘Guardian of the Forest’, and barred local poachers and the timber mafia from entering the forest. It was only later, when I had to plan what I wanted to grow on my farm, that I realised how difficult farming with wild animals was, and how expensive it is to keep them out.It was, of course, already too late to separate from the land.The original encroachersAfter having finished my Permaculture Design course (in Thailand, under professor John Champagne), I learnt that it might make more sense to simply farm side by side with these large animals, without bothering to keep them out. It felt counterintuitive, and I was forced to rethink everything.In truth, being introduced to the very colonialised idea of ‘ownership’, and particularly the ownership of property, was very uncomfortable. Whose land is it, really? Mine, with my money and property papers? Or the wild, which has an obvious first claim to the land, having been there for generations? Who moved into whose territory?
