Water tank for cassava maturation

BACKGROUND

Some study in Central Africa suggest that elephants are attracted by river and the community proximity with those increase the chance of negative Human - Elephant interactions.
Indeed, most central African rural families depend on cassava crops for the daily meal. Cassava consumption can be dangerous because the plant is toxic and need a water treatment of 2-5 days into fresh water to remove toxicities from the tuber, this method is called "rouissage" (similar to ripening in english).
In order to do so villages usually use the small river nearby but these rivers are also used by elephant for drinking and travelling.
The main problem is that the villagers can bump into an elephant on the way but also that elephants are eating cassava bag ripening in the river and can have a huge impact on the family food safety.
One village was highly impacted by this problem and crops devastation. They wanted to translate their distress and anger against elephants by planning blocking and protesting in front of park offices (which is not in charge of compensation for damage caused by wildlife, Congo state is in charge). However, Human wildlife conflict service meet the villages before that they decide to protest. This meeting show that the village was suffering for crops devastation and elephant river presence so the service decide to apply a solution: the water tank, to at least decrease elephant pressure on one the factor impacting the village.

DESCRIPTION

The solution applied is the construction of a small ripening tank in the village, where people can safely place their cassava bags without suffer from elephant consumption and improve community daily life by decreasing the effort and time to reach the river sometimes far away.

PRINCIPLE

The village has the chance to have a water pomp running, so with the village members we decide of the location of the cassava ripening tank. Then the park build it, the dimension of the water tank was quite small because the village is small (around 12 families). Then the water tank was connected to the water pomp and community start to use it.
After more than 6 months we conduct a small survey about the utilization of the water tank for ripening cassava , 95% of the twenty respondent were using the water tank and agreed that it was useful. The only person not utilizing the water tank suggest that their ancestors were using the river, so she wanted to continue to use it too.

CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS

Have to be planned with the village members and organized with them. Make sure that enough space is available to decrease community conflicts for water tank utilization. Be sure that local beliefs will not be a hindrance to the use of the water tank.

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