Human-Elephant Interaction in India
“A psychological burden on people practicing agriculture.”
Posted December 13, 2024
Reviewed by Tyler Woods
Changing land use and society in southern India has turned human-elephant interaction into conflict. The changes include conserving forests, preferring an urban lifestyle, and regulating farming. The psychological burden of this changing environment affects humans and elephants.
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Human-Elephant Interaction in India
印度的人象互动
“A psychological burden on people practicing agriculture.”
“对务农者来说这是一种心理负担。”
Posted December 13, 2024 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods
发布于2024 年 12 月 13 日 | Tyler Woods 评论
Changing land use and society in southern India has turned human-elephant interaction into conflict. The changes include conserving forests, preferring an urban lifestyle, and regulating farming. The psychological burden of this changing environment affects humans and elephants.
印度南部土地利用和社会的变化已使人象之间的互动演变为冲突。这些变化包括保护森林、青睐城市生活方式和规范农业。这种变化的环境所带来的心理负担影响着人类和大象。
“The elephants didn’t mean them any harm” explained a resident from Bannerghatta, India who has to be careful at night in case the animals trample them. It is about living with nature’s large creatures while farming, especially as changing land use constrains the elephants. Another resident explained how the difficulties with the elephants become “a psychological burden.”
“大象并没有伤害它们”，一位来自印度班纳加塔的居民解释道，他晚上必须小心，以防大象踩到自己。在耕作的同时还要与大自然中的大型动物共处，尤其是土地用途的改变会限制大象的生活。另一位居民解释说，与大象相处的困难如何成为“心理负担”。
These words are from a recent podcast about the mental health and livelihood impacts of living with environmental change around the Bannerghatta National Park in southern India. Interspersed with sounds of water, insects, and birds, people relay the challenges and opportunities they face when mixing their day-to-day living with external desires to conserve and protect nature.
这些话来自最近的播客，内容是关于生活在印度南部班纳加塔国家公园周围环境变化对心理健康和生计的影响。在水声、昆虫声和鸟鸣声中，人们讲述了在将日常生活与保护自然的外部愿望相结合时所面临的挑战和机遇。
Land Body Ecologies Podcast is produced by Invisible Flock and this episode, The Land Has Changed For Them Too, is produced with Quicksand in collaboration with Buffalo Back Collective and Frontier Elephant Programme.
《Land Body Ecologies Podcast》由 Invisible Flock 制作，这一集《The Land Has Changed For Them Too 》由 Quicksand与 Buffalo Back Collective 和 Frontier Elephant Programme合作制作。
The project connects artists, scientists, and people working in their own communities, typically Indigenous and land-dependent. To research and analyse people’s experiences and feelings—including producing the podcasts—designers, conservationists, activists, scientists, and technologists come together, sharing their knowledges and ideas.
该项目将艺术家、科学家和在自己社区工作的人们联系起来，这些社区通常是土著和依赖土地的社区。为了研究和分析人们的经历和感受（包括制作播客），设计师、环保主义者、活动家、科学家和技术专家聚集在一起，分享他们的知识和想法。
I am one of the scientists on the team, exchanging and learning how people across the continents have been imposed on to deal with environmental changes, human-environment interactions, and the psychological and emotional implications. Through this work, we aim to support people and communities in documenting their experiences related to solastalgia, which refers to mental health distress from environmental changes to home and land. There is also eco-inspiration and climate hope in terms of acting to counter the imposed challenges, fostering positive psychology, and seeking desired and desirable change.
我是团队中的一名科学家，交流和学习各大洲的人们如何应对环境变化、人与环境的相互作用以及心理和情感影响。通过这项工作，我们旨在支持人们和社区记录他们与乡愁相关的经历，乡愁指的是因家园和土地的环境变化而导致的心理健康困扰。在采取行动应对强加的挑战、培养积极心理和寻求期望和理想的变化方面，也有生态灵感和气候希望。
Elephants and people around Bannerghatta, India
印度班纳加塔周围的大象和人类
For the world around Bannerghatta, it means accepting elephants within farming and forest-dependent communities. The people living there do not always resent the elephants, even when the animals eat their fill of the crops and destroy some of what they do not eat. The communities living around the Bannerghatta National Park do not always see the elephants as intending to cause harm and recognise that the land belonged first to the elephants and then to human beings.
对于班纳加塔周围的世界来说，这意味着接受以农业和森林为生的社区中的大象。即使大象吃饱了庄稼并毁掉了一些它们不吃的东西，生活在那里的人们并不总是憎恨大象。班纳加塔国家公园周围的社区并不总是认为大象有意造成伤害，他们认识到这片土地首先属于大象，然后才属于人类。
An elephant behavioural scientist explains during the podcast how elephants and people have a long history of living (and eating) side-by-side. Each species has modified its behaviour according to experience from these interactions.
一位大象行为科学家在播客中解释了大象和人类如何长期并肩生活（和进食）。每个物种都根据这些互动中的经验改变了自己的行为。
The imposition of the park changed this dynamic, as did human populations, altering their needs and expectations for lives and livelihoods. External decisions delineate what land is “protected” and what is not, while indicating how to move away from traditional and subsistence lifestyles. Human-elephant interaction becomes human-elephant conflict, creating a psychological burden on the farmers.
公园的建立改变了这种动态，人类也改变了这种动态，改变了他们对生活和生计的需求和期望。外部决策划定了哪些土地是“受保护的”，哪些不是，同时指明了如何摆脱传统和自给自足的生活方式。人象互动变成了人象冲突，给农民带来了心理负担。
Adding to the separation from the land is younger generations commuting to the nearby city, Bangalore, for daily work or to live there, visiting the farms and forest only occasionally. Understanding elephants’ needs is diminishing, along with connections to all the other forest animals, including deer, peacocks, bison, and leopards. Even those who settle near the forest need to change their actions to deal with the rules and officials seeking to manage human “encroachment” into what used to be local land for local livelihoods.
更糟糕的是，年轻一代每天要往返于附近的城市班加罗尔，在那里工作或生活，只是偶尔去农场和森林。人们对大象需求的了解正在减少，与所有其他森林动物（包括鹿、孔雀、野牛和豹子）的联系也越来越少。即使是那些在森林附近定居的人也需要改变自己的行为，以应对规则和官员试图管理人类“侵占”曾经属于当地土地的行为，这些土地是为了当地生计。
Cross-species solastalgia
跨物种的乡痛症
Cultural memories now include elephants attacking and harming people, in addition to using weapons to attempt to scare elephants away, which does not always work. This contrasts with the previous cultural norm of respecting and living with elephants.
如今的文化记忆包括大象攻击和伤害人类，以及使用武器试图吓跑大象（但这种方法并不总是奏效）。这与以前尊重大象并与大象共处的文化规范形成了鲜明对比。
This shift undermines some of the knowledge which people used to thrive on, and so induces solastalgia. It also neglects the intelligence of elephants, their adaptability to different environments, and their distress when their familiar places or access to them suddenly changes.
这种转变削弱了人们过去赖以生存的一些知识，从而引发了乡愁。它还忽视了大象的智力、它们对不同环境的适应能力，以及它们在熟悉的地方或进入它们的途径突然改变时所感到的痛苦。
And so the podcast concludes with how solastalgia also affects animals other than human beings. The psychological burden of what is now human-elephant conflict is not just on people practicing agriculture, but is also on elephants who used to know how to find food and thrive on human-occupied land.
播客最后谈到了乡痛症如何影响人类以外的动物。如今人象冲突的心理负担不仅影响农业生产者，还影响了曾经知道如何在人类居住的土地上寻找食物和繁衍生息的大象。
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