With a view to protect standing crops from wild animals, particularly elephants, the forest department of Uttarakhand is going to guard fields with solar fencing. In this exercise the department would seek the assistance of the Uttarakhand Renewable Energy Development Authority (UREDA). Though, as the old experience suggests, even this innovative means of discouraging wild animals from entering human habitats and their orchards is not a long-term solution, given the large scale damage the beleaguered farmers of the State have to face every year, it seems to have become the need of the hour to go with this experiment along with other ways of protecting standing crops, said forest department sources. Apart from environment friendly, solar fencing system can also prove to be a very cost effective way of protecting standing crops for the forest department as it is run by conventional energy resources. The forest department may go with this experiment initially in the State