Р’В© Hector RETAMALР”Р„ Xishuangbanna elephant national park has been proposed by Chinese scientists, but it would require the expensive and politically tricky task of reclaiming farmland and relocating hundreds of thousands of residents to link up pockets of habitat Ironically, successful conservation is partly to blame.Р”Р„sian elephants, which range across South and Southeast Asia, were nearly exterminated within China, leaving only around 150 in Xishuangbanna by the 1980s.Р”В¬onservationists say a 1988 hunting ban and strict protection of a sprinkling of fragmented elephant reserves has turned things around. But there is conflict now,' Ma said dryly. Still, they regularly find their way in, putting the village in lockdown until the potentially dangerous trespassers wander out, usually after raiding fruit and vegetable gardens. The village of rubber-tappers is entered through a wide steel gate that clangs shut at night, when hunger activates the elephants. The neatly ordered homes of the little community, called Xiangyanqing, climb up a gently sloping hillside, dotted by signs promoting human-elephant 'harmony' and encircled by a steel fence separating it from adjacent jungle. The tension is immediately apparent in Ma's village in Xishuangbanna, a subtropical prefecture the size of a small country where China's elephant population congregates. Р’В© HandoutР”Р„ wandering herd of Asian elephants has captivated China for more than a year with a remarkable trek northwards through farms and cities hundreds of kilometres from their normal range in Yunnan province Р’В© Hector RETAMALР”В¬ommunist Party media portrays the 14 wandering elephants -РІР‚вЂњ now pointed homeward after an 18-month odyssey - as lovable symbols of China's conservation successР”В«ut an elephant in the street is now a common sight for residents of the animals' home territory on the Myanmar-Laos border, where a recovering elephant population is being squeezed into ever-shrinking habitat, leading to more conflict with humans. Today, the 42-year-old village chief barricades his community to keep them out.Р”Р„ wandering herd of Asian elephants has captivated China for more than a year with a remarkable trek northwards through farms and cities hundreds of kilometres from their normal range in Yunnan province. Ma Mingliang rarely encountered wild elephants while growing up in southwestern China, after centuries of hunting and deforestation nearly eradicated them. Devoured crops and damaged homes in Xishuangbanna are the prefecture's biggest source of insurance claims

Tricky test 2 hide the elephants