NARRARATOR: Throughout the parched Sahel, hundreds of other young herders struggle to keep their animals alive. At shrinking waterholes, squatters’ rights prevail. Half a dozen boys will often have to drive off a herd of elephants so their own animals can drink. People are killed every year by elephants in the Sahel... but today these Goliaths appear in no mood for a fight. As many as seven hundred elephants migrate through the Sahel - some of the last truly wild herds in Africa. Just like the goats and cattle, they cover huge distances each year, driven by the same relentless thirst and hunger. That trek has left its evolutionary mark on these elephants. They have longer legs than their grassland counterparts, which they need to walk the eight hundred miles of their migration route - further than any other African elephant. As the dry season advances, the elephants converge on a rare source of permanent water, Lake Gossi. Elephants can drink more than forty gallons a day - and here there’s water enough for everyone. The elephants are allowed to drink unmolested... but they’re hungry as well as thirsty. And that means trouble for the people who live around the lake. The Tuareg people have a proud tradition as nomads. But prolonged drought forced some to settle along the lake and try their hand at farming. They’ve made the Sahel bloom... and in turn attracted a plague of giants. In the dry season Omar Sowadou has come to expect visitors.

OMAR: We are living here in this area, just beside the water. Of course we use the water for our garden, and for our animals. But elephants, they come to drink water of course, and they want to cool down their body, so all of us, we share the same water.

NARRARATOR: During the day, an uneasy peace settles over the lake. People fill their goatskins; the elephants drink. But when night falls, the truce will be broken.

OMAR: After drinking the come straight away to the garden because they smell food - trees and crops. So we have to protect our garden.

NARRARATOR: It takes more than brush fences to keep out three tons of hungry pachyderm.

OMAR: If an elephant spend just half an hour in a garden, he will eat at least 30% of it and this is the big danger for farmers.

NARRARATOR: To lose a third of their crop is a catastrophe for any farmer, let alone here. And this is not your average garden pest. As the sun sets the battle lines are drawn.

OMAR: The farmer digs holes to keep the elephant away from the farm, to not damage the farm but it is not enough. They come all the time, spoil a lot of things and you cannot even get to sleep during the night. It becomes like a nightmare.

NARRARATOR: Tonight, the nightmare materializes - and the enemy is engaged. At first light, Omar finds he’s had a near brush with disaster.

OMAR: I discovered that there were two elephants in the garden. I followed their footprints to the next garden. I found they had damaged a lot of crops and trees. I do remember since I was a kid we are doing the same...things every year, and for sure I will do it in the future, every year, and this is the daily fight among us and elephant. Every time we are facing the same problem with elephant, every year.

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