~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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[Year 2001]

Rogue elephants claim new victim as Hanoi agrees to relocation plan

HANOI, June 11 (AFP) - Wild elephants have claimed a fresh victim in south-central Vietnam just as the authorities finally approved longstanding proposals to relocate a rogue herd, officials said Monday. Truong Van Hai, 29, was trampled to death in the province of Binh Thuan Friday as he attempted to protect his crops, a district official told AFP. His pregnant wife and two children managed to escape the rampaging beasts which tore Hai's body into small pieces, the official said. Four homes were also destroyed in the attack which brings the death toll from the rogue herd to more than 20 in the past three years in Binh Thuan and the neighbouring province of Dong Nai. Rapid development of the two provinces has severely eroded the elephants' forest habitat leading to growing crop-raiding and conflict with farmers. Last week Prime Minister Phan Van Khai finally approved long-delayed plans to relocate the eight-to-10-strong herd to a remote district in the central highland province of Dak Lak close to the Cambodian border. The official media blamed the delays in approving the scheme on funding difficulties -- the Dutch embassy was forced to withdraw a pledged donation after changes in government aid regulations. But the conservation group Fauna and Flora International (FFI), which is funding 45,000 dollars of the more than 100,000-dollar cost, said security problems had been as much to blame. The central highlands where the herd is to be relocated was hit by a Vietnam's worst unrest in decades earlier this year. The communist authorities closed the region off to outsiders after sending in the army in early February to suppress protests by the region's mainly Christian indigenous minorities. FFI country director Frank Momberg said he had now received assurances from the authorities that foreign veterinarians and other experts would be granted access. The area where the animals are due to be released, in Cu Gut district just south of Yak Don national park, was in any case not a hotspot of the unrest as it has been heavily settled by ethnic Vietnamese in recent years, he said. Momberg said he expected to appoint a team of elephant specialists from India and Indonesia in the next few days with a view to going ahead with the relocation sometime in September or October. FFI estimates that barely 100 elephants are left in the wild in Vietnam due to the growing destruction of their habitat.

Agence France Presse - June 11, 2001.