Opinion Terms of co-existence

(File)

The new regional plan to curb human-elephant conflict in eastern and central India is significant for several reasons. Inaugurated on Wednesday by the wildlife wardens of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, it requires their departments to come together — for the first time — to resolve a problem which has assumed grave proportions in the last decade. These five states have about 10 per cent of the country’s elephant population but account for over 50 per cent of deaths due to human-elephant conflict. More than 750 people were killed by the pachyderms in these five states between 2014 and 2017.

Elephants, like tigers, are among the flagship species of conservation. But unlike tigers, the bulk of whose territories falls within protected areas, only about 20 per cent of the elephant’s range lies in national parks and sanctuaries. With forests thinning out, elephants in most parts of the country have dispersed into areas with high density of human population. This tendency has been particularly noticeable in eastern and central India, where the pachyderms have extended their range into areas which had no history of elephant presence for several decades, even centuries. Elephants were concentrated in about 14 districts in Odisha till the 1980s, their range has now extended to at least 30 districts in the state. Herds of elephants have even been sighted in the steel city of Rourkela. The animals have also made their way to southern parts of West Bengal where they were rare about 35 years ago. In the past 15 years, elephants from the mining-depleted Saranda forests of Jharkhand have moved to Chhattisgarh. This migration has meant that humans and elephants compete for the same resources. The conflict intensifies when people try to chase away the animals with searchlights, crackers or guns, making the pachyderms even more aggressive. The use of fences to stop elephant migration has also not worked.

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The new plan divides elephant habitats into three zones: Areas with forest cover sufficient enough to conserve elephants, habitats where humans and animals will co-exist, and “elephant removal zones” in agricultural areas. In the agricultural areas, the plan envisages capturing the animals and removing them to other forest areas, and if that fails, keeping some of the animals in captivity. On Wednesday, wildlife wardens held preliminary consultations on ways to carve out these zones. The working of the plan hinges on coordination between their departments. A lot will also depend on how these personnel-starved departments train their officials in tranquilising elephants and capturing them.