As formidable instruments of war, they have changed the destinies of empires.
As marauding crop raiders, they are despised.
As an endangered species, they are cherished.

Numerous and often contrasting are the ways in which elephants have been regarded by humans across millennia. Today, with reduced forest cover, human population expansion, and increasing industrialization, interaction between the two species is unavoidable and conflict is not mere happenstance. What, then, is the future of this relationship?

In South Asia, human-elephant relationships resonate with cultural...