• I don´t like to go into the jungle, a young man wearing a cap called Mojo says. He is one of the touristguides we meet at one of the hotels near Chitwan national park. – I do it only because I have to, because some tourists have asked for it. The truth is I had decided never to do it anymore.
• Why are you afraid to go into the jungle?
• I used to take tourists on “jungle walks”. It used to be my job. Once I went with another guide and a foreign couple. It was in the afternoon, and we had been walking all day without anything to eat or drink. It was burning hot and I was so thirsty. It was my turn to walk in front, when we got a message that there was a wild elephant coming towards us, and we should turn right to avoid him. So we did, and tried to avoid him this way. The only problem was that the elephant also changed his direction and came directly towards us. We did not know, because the elephant came totally silent… He breathes through his trunk, he does not make a sound. His teeth were as big as this – Mojo shows me the upper part of his arms. – One knock, and you are no more, he says.

In the panic that followed, the two guides agreed to go with one tourist each, the tourists were afraid and did not know what to do. When Mojo went with the girl, the elephant came chasing them, challenging them. They were trying to get to the river were a canoe was coming, but the elephant followed them into the water, they ran as fast as they could and according to Mojo, hardly escaped the elephants deadly bite. – The german girl started to cry, and when she cried it was as if I cried too. That’s when I decided never to go into the jungle again.

Mojo breaths heavily. – I can do a lot of things, rhinos and bears I can handle, a bear at least you can fight. But a wild elephant, there is nothing to do against such an animal.

• The wild elephant comes here because of the elephant breeding centre, Raj Gurung one of the authorized guides of the Chitwan national park explains. We have taken the canoe over the river to the national park, where we are sitting at the riverbed. He explains to me all the traces we find. – Look here, he says, the leopards have just been here to drink.

• I have never seen wild animals attack without being provoked, if it is not to live a happy life according to their instincts. They don’t want to bother anyone besides from that, he says. – Why should the wild animals come here and look for people? They don’t do that, they only have to come if they don’t find enough to eat in the jungle. Then they come to eat from the farmers fields around here.

According to guides who have been working in the area around Sauraha for the last 15-20 years, the number of animals in the forest is dramatically decreasing. They suspect it is because of the floods, sweeping away the vegetation, leaving desert behind, and because of the many people who come to collect firewood from within the forest.

• The government should provide them with some option, Raj Gurung says. – People live to close to the wild life. Why do they have to live so close to the national park? When a rhino attacks and kills a person, they blame the rhino. But the rhino is just following his natural instincts.

Since the insurgency began in 1996 poaching of endangered species in the park has increased rapidly because of reduced security posts within the park. No military longer dares to stand guard there.

Chitwan, January 2005