Wildlife Trust :: Reader's Digest

The Asiatic elephant (Elephas maximus) has been the icon of Asia's culture for centuries. But, as an icon of its biological wealth, it has a better chance of survival.

A thousand languages and dialects, many religions, hundreds of tribal communities, varied dance and music forms, multi-cuisine and diverse forms of art and architecture, all reflect India's great cultural and historical heritage. But what the world knows little about is its great biological heritage. One of the 12 mega-biodiversity centers of the world, India shares a substantial portion of the world's biodiversity within its borders. From the rain forests in the Western Ghats to alpine forests in the Himalaya, the forests of India also hold two of the 25 biodiversity hotspots of the world: Western Ghats and Eastern Himalayas, which have both endemic and endangered species.

The Western Ghats region is home to a threatened but flagship species that holds the key to the conservation of huge forest complexes/landscapes. This charismatic species is the Asiatic Elephant. With more than 28,000 elephants, India is home to 60% of the world's Asian elephant population. Of these, the largest populations, totaling between 10,500-14,500, are found in southern India, primarily in the Western Ghats region, with sizeable numbers also seen in the northeast of the country. This Nilgiri-Eastern Ghats elephant population holds the key to the long-term survival of the species in Asia.

Conservation of the Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus, Family: Elephantidae; Order: Proboscidea) entails the protection of its very large habitat. A threatened species, it features in the 1996 IUCN Red List of Mammals, Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). An estimated 45,000 wild Asian elephants are distributed in 13 Asian countries: India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China (only southern Yunnan), Malaysia (peninsular Malaysia and Sabah) and Indonesia (Sumatra and Kalimantan).

Although the elephant possesses a large stomach, it suffers from poor digestion. Hence, the elephant spends a large part of the day, nearly 18 hours, eating. It also defecates an equal number of times. This continuous eating helps it to gather the essential nutrients.

A large appetite requires a large habitat! Hence, the elephant is constantly on the move, looking for food and water resources. Some resourceful elephants in isolated patches of forests have learned to raid human settlements for food and water, which eventually results in conflict.

Two significant issues that affect elephants today, other than poaching, are habitat fragmentation and elephant-human conflict that result in local antagonism towards the elephant and its conservation.

Struggle for Space: Booming Human Population Versus Declining Elephant Numbers and their Habitats

More than half of India's population of more than a billion people is in competition for space with about 28,000 elephants in the wild. The elephant's habitat is exploited for fruits, fodder, fuel, etc, and the forests cleared for cultivation, plantations, settlements, etc. Added to this, developmental activities like hydroelectric projects, roads, railway lines and mining have also robbed the elephant of its home. The relentless encroachment of the elephant's habitat by man and the continued usage of the traditional migratory routes by the elephants, eventually bring about the unnecessary encounter between both the species. This has led to severe elephant-human conflict in many parts of the country.

Elephant-human conflict refers to negative interactions such as crop raiding by elephants, human injuries/deaths caused by elephants and killing of elephants for reasons other than ivory extraction. Crop raiding is a major problem in cultivations abutting elephant habitats. Cultivated crops worth millions of dollars are destroyed each year, and small farmers may lose an entire year's provisions in a single night's raid. Conflict is acute in areas that have large and high-density elephant and human populations. Farmers resort to traditional methods of driving elephants from their fields, like creating noise through firecrackers and carrying flame torches. They erect illegal electric fences by tapping electricity from the main transmission lines, which kill crop-raiding elephants. In India alone over 200 people are killed each year by wild elephants, with a large proportion of the incidents occurring in cultivated fields and settlements.

Extensive surveys in northeastern, central and southern India have clearly shown that the intensity of elephant-human conflict is directly proportional to the degree of habitat fragmentation. A radio-telemetry study of the ranging patterns of elephants and their conflict with people in northern West Bengal is providing critical information on seasonal use of habitat, usage of corridors and crop-raiding patterns. The elephants here travel over an area of up to 1000 square kilometers each year, thus indicating that the maintenance of large, contiguous tracts of forest and grassland habitat is important to ensure their long-term survival.

The demand for ivory in the international market has not declined even after numerous international legislations banning all domestic and international trade in ivory and ivory products. Southeast Asia and Europe are gobbling up ivory like no time in history. Although a major portion of this ivory comes from African elephants, a significant portion of Asian elephant ivory is traded-off as African ivory. Unlike the African elephants, only the males have tusks in the Asian elephants. Severe poaching of tuskers has skewed the sex ratio of the Asian elephants drastically in many parts of India in the last few decades. Strengthening anti-poaching efforts and infrastructure and increasing the prosecution levels of the offenders will help protect the elephants to a large extent.

Many measures have been taken to protect and conserve this mega-herbivore. Noise, elephant-proof trenches (EPT), electrified fences and capture or culling of rogue elephants has been tried with various levels of success. In some areas, elephant-scaring squads equipped with firearms, firecrackers, vehicles and kumkies (tamed elephants used to chase or capture wild elephants) are used to chase elephants away from the crop fields and plantations. The idea of a mechanical steel fence using old railway tracks is also being given due consideration.

Community participation and well-maintained electric fences act as effective barriers against elephants. Our work in Ramballi settlement in Wyanad Wildlife Sanctuary has proved that community participation in erecting and maintaining electric fences around their settlements and cultivation is reasonably effective in keeping elephants away from the crop fields.

Project Elephant, an idea launched by the Government of India in 1992, has taken a number of measures toward protecting elephant habitats and corridors, reducing elephant-human conflict, capacity building of enforcement staff and machinery, and education and outreach, spending nearly 16 million (US) dollars in the process. National and state governments spend nearly three million (US) dollars every year to compensate conflict victims and in mitigation efforts.

The ANCF has spearheaded elephant conservation activities including surveys of elephant distribution, mapping of elephant habitats and identifying important "corridors" that are under threat.

The centre has a program of identifying and mapping corridors as well as raising funds for securing or augmenting them.

Three corridors have been prioritized for action. Bekkatur-Arabikere corridor connects the habitats of Chamrajnagar and Kollegal Divisions in Karnataka; Kaniyanpura corridor connects the western parts of the Bandipur National Park of Karnataka, with its eastern extremities; and Brahmagiri-Tirunelli corridor connects Tirunelli RF in the west with Kudrakote RF in the east, in the Wynad Plateau of Kerala, facilitating elephant movement from the dry deciduous forests of Wynad WLS and Nagarhole NP to the wet forests of the Brahmagiri Hills (Kerala and Karnataka).

Raman Sukumar Leads Asian Elephant Conservation Efforts

Sukumar in the field / ANCF

AN INTERVIEW WITH RAMAN SUKUMAR

What is this special bonding between you and the Asian elephants?

An enduring symbol of Asia's culture, I am mesmerized by the varied roles it has played and continues to play in our lives. But I am bothered by the steady decline in its numbers. It is a cause for worry. There are only about 45,000 Asian elephants left in the wild. They need to be conserved. Using the elephant as a flagship species, I have been trying to draw people's attention towards the conservation of large habitats and landscapes that will ultimately prove beneficial not only to the elephants and other denizens of the forest, but also to humankind.

What are the specific achievements of your work of nearly 25 years on this species?

I have been working on various strategies to mitigate human-elephant conflict and elephant poaching for ivory. The first and foremost effect of any conservation activity is that it immediately brings the whole problem into focus, and this helps bring all the people involved to the realm of reasoning, which awakens both governments and people alike to the consequences of not saving this species. To this end, many of the conservation activities, including legislative, have been effective in the past. But a lot more needs to be done.

How has ANCF contributed to elephant conservation in India?

No single agency can claim credit for all that has happened in the field of Asian elephant conservation. Innumerable agencies have been co-operating with the governments of the respective elephant range countries. The project elephant directorate in India is helped and assisted by innumerable agencies, including ANCF.

How can technology make a difference to the future of the Asian elephants?

Technology definitely helps both the captive as well as wild Asian elephants, to understand the problem better and exchange the available information with concerned agencies. I have been actively involved in the radio/satellite collaring of Asian Elephants in different parts of the country. To date, we have collared eleven elephants in West Bengal. These collared elephants help us map their distribution, establish elephant corridors and understand their movement patterns.

We are also developing an early warning system using satellite collars to track the movement pattern of notorious crop-raiders, which will alert both the forest department and villagers to take preventive measures. The satellite data received on a daily basis is mapped and the movement pattern sent to the forest officials for action. This will to some extent help mitigate the problem of human elephant conflict regionally.

From your experience, what do you think is the most effective way of conserving the Asian elephant?

I strongly believe that conservation should be planned and executed with the cooperation of the local governments. The strong backing of the government is crucial for the implementation of any action plan for its conservation. The elephant's habitat encompasses large landscapes that are directly under the control of the governments. It is too important that this aspect is not neglected when planning any conservation strategy. No amount of planning in an ivory tower will help conserve the species.

How will you solve elephant-human conflict?

Honestly speaking, I don't have any magic and hence, can't tell you that I will solve this conflict. All I have been trying to do is help protect the elephant's habitat from further degradation. Humans and elephants can co-exist harmoniously only when there are set boundaries for both. We need to find alternatives for people cultivating near forest boundaries. They can be encouraged to cultivate crops that will not be eaten by the elephants. The governments have to take steps to conserve large forest areas in order to ensure the survival of viable populations.

Raman Sukumar is a leading ecologist who has made significant contributions towards Asian elephant ecology and conservation, climate change and forest vegetation dynamics. He is an associate professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Chairman of the Asian Elephant Specialist Group (http://www.asiannature.org/) IUCN/Species Survival Commission. Professor Sukumar represents Indian wildlife scientists in a number of national and state governmental committees. Among others he is a member of the Indian Board for Wildlife (chaired by the Prime Minister of India), member of the Project Elephant Steering Committee (chaired by the Union Minister for Environment and Forests) and the Karnataka State Wildlife Advisory Board (chaired by the State Minister for Forests). He is the author of two books (a third is in press) on elephants and several scientific papers and articles in ecology.

In 2003, Raman was a Whitley GOLD Award winner and a Whitley Award winner for his work with Asian elephants as a flagship for biodiversity conservation in the Nilgiri landscape of southern India.

The Asian Elephant

Raman Sukumar Leads Asian Elephant Conservation Efforts