On a morning in late August, farmer Srinivas Rao stared at three elephants stomping through his cornfields. Months of his hard labor were destroyed in a matter of hours.

“They come for 10 days, leave, then they come back again,” he said.

Rao lives in Parvathipuram, an agrarian town in northeastern Andhra Pradesh, India. Its rolling plains are filled with rows of cotton, rice and corn that are sold along the nearby Bay of Bengal.

But the town’s pastoral calm has been shattered in the past decade with the arrival of these elephants.

“It’s all losses,” Rao said, pointing to where the elephants had trampled his harvest. Two females and a calf alternated between devouring the sweet corn and tossing stalks onto their backs to protect themselves from the sun’s rays.

This herd of nine elephants arrived in 2017, as the state to the north, Odisha, intensified its mining of iron ore. Vast sections of their territory were destroyed. So, they fled south — only to discover that this region has virtually no forests to graze on.

Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and human activity have already degraded their traditional habitats, pushing humans and elephants into increasingly narrower spaces. And the problem is likely to grow as climate change intensifies.

“What are we supposed to do, tell me?” Rao asked. “This is our lives.”

Managing elephants

Most elephants in the state spend their days in the forests and raid farms at night, but these elephants face unusual circumstances.

“It’s a unique case, where elephants are living in the agricultural fields 24 hours a day,” said K. Manikantesh, a forest department official.

In some places, officials burst firecrackers to scare elephants back into the forest. But in Parvathipuram, there are almost no forests to run to. And loud sounds can make things worse.

When villagers plead for firecrackers, Manikantesh tells them, “You can use [the firecrackers], but the elephants will get more aggressive and make things harder for you.”

On that day in August, the elephants had been trapped in one area for more than a week. A young calf was unable to navigate a fast-moving river brimming with monsoon rainfall. And on the other side, they faced a railway track with fast-moving trains.

Elephants haven’t been seen in this state for 200 years, but since they arrived — from both the west and north — officials have searched for solutions to protect both people and the endangered species.

They erected metal and electric fences, and dug trenches to block the elephants’ paths. But elephants are extremely intelligent, and some of them managed to overcome these obstacles.

Officials have videos of elephants pulling down electric fences with their nonconductive tusks, and working in teams to fill trenches with mud.

In Parvathipuram, one elephant expert, Rakesh Kalva, assessed a previous government proposal to enclose the elephants in a three-mile patch of forest.

Kalva recalled telling officials, “You might capture these elephants, but you cannot ensure that a new herd won’t come to this habitat.”

Ultimately, the plan fell through.

He is now trying to work on other options like instituting a “crop holiday” to make farms less appealing to the elephants.

For now, trackers follow the Parvathipuram herd at all times to warn locals and try to prevent human-elephant conflict.

“Even a small amount of negligence will cost lives,” Manikantesh said.

Climate change and dwindling forests

Along the Bay of Bengal, climate change is directly affecting people, plants and animals.

“Because of the influence of the humidity that comes up from the oceans, we have more intense heat effects,” said Venkata Sarath Chandra, a public health researcher. He said the effects could be especially dangerous in Andhra Pradesh, which has the second longest coastline in India.

This could become deadly in the coastal districts of Vizianagaram and Srikakulam, where elephants live. One 2024 study found that as the climate changes, conflicts with elephants could “shift and increase.”

One reason for that is degrading forests.

Wildlife biologist Dr. B. Ramakrishnan pointed out that rising temperatures could make it hard for native plant species to survive, allowing for a “proliferation of exotic, invasive species.”

One study in Andhra Pradesh found that Lantana camara, an exotic shrub, makes it difficult for elephants to forage.

“Besides having no food value for elephants,” the paper noted, “it suppresses the growth of native species, including grass.”

In fact, in a nearby state, officials have been removing these invasive plants from forests in an effort to reduce human-elephant conflict.

The same study also found that Lantana camara poses a fire hazard. The combination of degraded forests, hotter days and the risk of drought means that one lightning strike could wipe out even more of the elephants’ diet.

Andhra Pradesh had one of the highest rates of forest fires in India in 2024.

Between mining, deforestation and climate change, elephants have fewer places to turn.

In Parvathipuram, this means some females have even given birth to their calves within crop fields. For these young elephants, crops are the only food they’ve ever known.

So, even if government officials managed to drive them towards forestland, they might not have the foraging skills to survive there.

They’ve ‘become like family members’

Near the 3,500-person town of Ghanasara, one farmer named Nanaji Chowdhry said he understands why elephants have arrived in their area. “There’s sufficient food, water facilities and nice places to rest here.”

That doesn’t mean he’s happy about it. In the two districts that include Ghanasara and Parvathipuram, 12 human and seven elephant deaths have been reported to date.

Chowdhry and his friends are exhausted from living so near a herd of four elephants, which are also from Odisha.

People have been trampled to death in neighboring villages.

One man, Praveen Valurouthu, explains that their daily lives revolve around managing this danger.

“After 4 p.m., you have to be so careful,” he explained. “You have to call the officials, look this way, look that way.”

The villagers started a WhatsApp group chat called “Four Elephants Information” to alert loved ones to the elephants’ whereabouts throughout the day.

They also have the direct number of forest department officials, who have “become like family members now,” he said, “after [working together for] five years.”

Avinash Krishnan, who runs the conservation group A Rocha India, believes “there is no real future for elephants in [Andhra Pradesh],” because of thinning forests, isolated populations lacking genetic diversity and proximity to humans.

But without a clear solution, for now, farmers and elephants are continuing their uneasy coexistence — against a backdrop of dwindling forests and rising temperatures.

This story was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.