Farmers in some villages in Yunnan Province have lost more than 100,000 kilograms of crops and heads of cattle to state-protected animals roaming out of a neighboring nature reserve in the past year, and they said the number of such incidents is increasing every year.

Tigers living in the Nangun River Nature Reserve, bordering Myanmar, killed 85 heads of oxen in the nearby villages in the past three years. The local farmers also fear for their lives and feel threatened by the wildlife, such as the Asian elephant, wild boars, and Bengal tigers.

Li Yemeng, a Mangku Village woman, still had the shivers when recalling her recent face-to-face confrontation with an Asian elephant in her fields.

She said the elephant was only 20 meters away from her and her legs went weak that she didn't dare move.

"Three groups of elephants frequent here. They grab our crops in the harvest time," she said.

Her village just borders on the nature reserve, without any buffer zone.

The 70-square-kilometer nature reserve, established in 1981, currently is home to 18-20 Asian elephants, five to seven Bengal tigers, and about 15 white-handed gibbons, reserve administrators said. A total of 13 kinds of animals in the nature reserve as well as 36 species of plants are under state protection.

However, without a necessary surrounding buffer zone, the nature reserve is almost an isolated "ecological island."

It is ringed with farmlands and rubber and coffee plantations, among others. Some villagers built their courtyard walls exactly on the border of the nature reserve and their latrines inside it.

"The animals have no other option (but to disturb the villagers)," according to Wang Zhisheng, an expert at the nature reserve.

(eastday.com January 29, 2003)