Karen Michelmore, Reuters
May 9, 2008
Indonesian farmer Toha insists he isn't scared of the wild elephants that raid his village.
But he does admit to many sleepless nights when the giant creatures are roaming around in desperate search of food.
"We throw rocks and stones at them, but sometimes it doesn't scare them," he says from his modest wooden home in a small village on the border of Sumatra's Tesso Nilo National Park.
"If we don't throw anything, they will not go away. Everything will be eaten if we do nothing."
Crop raids by elephant have become a common event for Toha, and for many other impoverished villagers living in settlements around Sumatra's last pockets of wilderness.
Elephants and humans are clashing more than ever before, as forests in Sumatra's Riau Province are stripped bare. And humans appear to be winning the fight.
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