Elephant-prevention primary school in Pu'er city

Since the migrant elephant herd continually gained public attentions from Chinese and even the world, reporters came to the first stop where the herd walked in south Yunnan’s Pu’er City. There is a primary school, Naji Primary School, which has China’s first elephant prevention facilities.

In front of the school gate, an elephant movable defense can be seen with 24 meters long, 3.2 meters high and over 10 tons. There are 164 pupils studying in the school.

China’s Asian elephants usually inhabit in the territory of Xishuangbanna Yi Autonomous Prefecture. As the eco environment in neighborhood city, Pu’er, is better and better, more and more elephants cross the land and forage in Pu’er. In 1999, a single elephant first entered Pu’er from Xishuangbanna and there were more coming later. So far, there have been 181 Asian elephants active in the territory of Pu’er, making up more than one half of the total number in China.

Before they built the fence, there were over 40 elephants living nearby the school and causing some troubles. In 2017, a herd broke into the school by smashing the outside wall. In 2019, they came again by breaking the school gate. The school guard, Tao Zhaobing said, “At midnight, I heard elephants’ noise. Two elephants entered the campus and ate out the banana trees."

"Later, local authorities installed the elephant-prevention facilities in order to prevent elephants breaking in. “Since the prevention was settled, elephants have never entered the school again. They tried to kick the fence but they couldn’t move it,” said Tao

"Apart from the physical facilities, we also rearranged the campus greening area by removing the plants that elephants don’t like”, said Zhu Chao, headmaster of Naji Primary School. “For the students’ safety, we set some rehearsals on elephant defense, establish the wildlife protection courses, and teach children how to get along with elephants. We tell children nature is the home for both humans and wildlife.”

Reporting by Miao Chao (China News Service); Online photos; Trans-editing by Mo Yingyi