Eighty-three farmers in southwest China have claimed an estimated 55,000 yuan (US$8,052) in insurance for damage caused by wild Asian elephants last month.

They are the first claims filed since the establishment on January 1 of a new insurance cover for losses caused by elephants, the first of its kind to protect the endangered species from people whose lives and properties they threaten.

The farmers in Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, reported crops, cars and homes damaged by the wild Asian elephants in January.

The administration of Xishuangbanna Natural Reserve and China Pacific Insurance Group Xishaungbanna branch signed a contract in November 2009 to start the insurance scheme in the region, to ease the long-standing conflict between the wild animals and local residents.

According to the contract, the administration has paid 2.85 million yuan in premiums and the insurance company will cover all damage caused by wild Asian elephants within the prefecture in 2010, with a maximum compensation up to 30 million yuan.

Man versus wild

Wild Asian elephants are under the national level protection and only about 250 live in the wild in China, mainly in the extreme southwest of Yunnan Province's Xishuangbanna Natural Reserve.

But except for regulations restricting people from hunting and logging, the reserve has nothing to truly limit the activities of both residents and wild animals.

Yang Mei is a villager in the reserve region. Her uncle was killed by a wild elephant in 1995, but her family only got 600 yuan compensation from the government.

"They blamed us for entering the reserve without permission, but we actually live inside it," Yang said.

"The number of wild animals has increased after all these years of efforts to protect them, but they have caused more trouble for local residents," Yang Songhai, director of the Xishuangbanna Natural Reserve Administration, said.

He said the economic losses caused by wild Asian elephants in the last three years averaged 6 million yuan each year.

Yang said wild animals, including Asian elephants and bears, caused 645 injuries in 1993, and the number increased to 4,098 in 2003. From 1991, more than 130 local villagers were attacked by wild animals.

Costs of conservation

"But the compensation that people got was less than 10 percent of the economic losses caused by the animals," Yang said.

Under the scheme, the company will pay a maximum 200,000 yuan for any single death caused by wild Asian elephants. The maximum compensation for injuries was 100,000 yuan per person.

In 1995, only 25,600 to 32,750 Asian elephants were thought to remain in the wild from India to Vietnam, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Since then, populations of the elephants have dwindled still further and scientists fear that the current populations may have fallen well below 1995 estimates, the organization said on its website.

(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2010)