New Delhi: The Union environment ministry on Monday said at least 500 people and 100 elephants die in India due to human-elephant conflict annually.
While releasing a document on the best practices of conflict management and a portal on addressing conflict, ministry officials said there are 30,000 elephants in the wild in India and 2,700 in captivity.
Soumitra Dasgupta, additional director general of forests (wildlife), said financial contribution to states for payment of compensation and other conflict mitigation strategies increased by 30% this financial year compared to the previous year. “New elephant reserves have been declared and elephant corridors have also been identified in the past five years to address the problem. Elephants have also been included in appendix 1 of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals to ensure better conservation.”
Sanjay Kumar, director general of forests, said the population and distribution of elephants in India was expanding. “New interactions are happening now leading to more conflict. They are migrating to newer areas. We are trying to identify research methodologies to understand how the population can remain stable in new areas,” he said.
The portal and the document was released by Union environment minister, Prakash Javadekar. “We do not kill animals in India. Animals are revered here. So we have to devise good conflict management practices. We have already started a fodder and water augmentation programme in elephant areas,” Javadekar said.
“In the last 20 to 30 years elephants have moved to new areas. From Jharkhand and Odisha they have moved to southern West Bengal. Quite a large dispersal had taken place in the 1980’s and another in recent years. They have moved from Jharkhand to Chhattisgarh and very recently to Madhya Pradesh. These are not elephant areas. I think we should try to prevent their movement through human dominated areas. We had advised earlier also that zonation is required for elephant movement which can help reduce conflict,” said R Sukumar, an ecologist specialising in elephants at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
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August 11, 2020 at 01:30AM
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500 people and 100 elephants die due to conflict each year: Centre - Hindustan Times
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