'Elephant problem is attrition, not extinction'

While tiger face extinction, the elephants have to deal with attrition. Forest ministers from eight countries deliberated on Tuesday on how to protect people from rising elephant population from around the world.

Updated on: May 25, 2011, 01:45:02 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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While tiger face extinction, the elephants have to deal with attrition. Forest ministers from eight countries deliberated on Tuesday on how to protect people from rising elephant population from around the world.

Elephant number around the world has remained almost constant at 5.5 lakh but huge destruction of their habitat about 20% in last 20 years has meant increase in human-elephant conflict.

"It is an issue of concern for all of us," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said, while adopting a resolution with seven other ministers to engage local communities in inclusive manner to manage the conflict and work together for elephant conservation. "Unlike the tiger, which faces threat of extinction, the elephant faces threats of attrition because of increase in biotic pressure on their habitat destruction".

India has over 27,000 elephants, an increase from over 21,000 in over six years in 26 elephant reserves spread over an area of 1.10 lakh square kms, more than the area of Congo. Only 65 percent of the corridors are in the protected areas and huge fragmentation has been reported from most parts of the country.

Elephants

India : 26,000-28,000

Africa : 4.72 lakh.

Elsewhere : 50,000.

26 elephant reserves in India in 1.10 lakh sq km

There are 88 tiger corridors of which 77 % are frequently used

Fragmentation in elephant reserves in north-east, west Bengal, Central India and Tamil Nadu.

Only 65 % of corridors are in protected wildlife areas.

Chilla-Motichur corridor in Uttarakhand has become a new conflict zone with resettlement of Tehri dam evacuees, high road and railway traffic and an ammunition dump. Another is Similipal-Satkosia in Orissa, where encroachment of the corridor by settlers and degradation of the forest cover has resulted in at least five elephant deaths. In Buxa-Ripu at Sankosh, West Bengal and Assam, degradation of forest and biotic pressure from two villages has forced elephants to frequently raid the villages.

Ramesh highlighted that mining projects in Central India were the biggest threat to elephants and called for a striking a balance between mining projects and elephant corridors.

The Union Cabinet had agreed to the National Elephant Conservation Authority (NECA) on the lines of the one for tigers for promoting elephant conservation and protection but asked the ministry to seek Finance Ministry's approval. The authority will examine new projects in elephant zones and frame policies for improving the habitats. The government had last year declared Elephant as the National Heritage Animal of the country.

The minister said that one of the recommendations of the Elephant Task Force last year was for India to take a lead in global elephant conservation. "The delegates present here represent two-third of the world's wild elephant population. Later in 2013 we will bring in all the 50 elephant range countries together to deliberate and actively cooperate for elephant conservation and welfare," he said.

Other than India, ministers of Botswana, Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Thailand participated at the day long conference.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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