Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Protect the elephants' that was published in Newsband

Protect the elephants

Elephant corridors need to be protected. The Supreme Court has ordered to seal and close 27 resorts operating in corridors used by elephants in the Nilgiris to restore the ecology of these spaces.

The movement of elephants is essential to ensure that their populations are genetically viable, and help regenerate forests on which other species, including tigers, depend. Ending human interference in the pathways of elephants is necessary so that they don’t conflict with people. Such conflict claim the lives of about 450 people and lead to the death of nearly 100 elephants in retaliatory actions every year on average.

A review of elephant corridors indicates that there are 101 such identified pathways, of which almost 70% are used regularly. There are an estimated 6,500 elephants in just the Brahmagiri-Nilgiris-Eastern Ghats ranges. There is need for complete protection of the routes they regularly use.

Effort should be to expand elephant corridors, using the successful models within the country. About 40% of elephant reserves are vulnerable.

It is good initiative by the Apex Court for welfare of wild life animals. The other important issue that the railways authority should devise a suitable mechanism to avoid deaths of many wild life-animals and elephants due to collision with trains at railway tracks using state of- the- art technology especially in North Eastern States and other parts of the country. This may be of immense valuable to save the life of animals.

The SC has positively acted on ecological conservation and protection of wild species. Since governments are not showing any intent and offering forest areas to big corporates to plunder, SC should monitor other forest lands too from being pillaged

Wild Corridors for elephants and tigers are necessary to be expanded, and kept defragmented. Human activities like agriculture and road laying have to be discreet and if necessary should be in the form of Forest Flyovers; priority has to be for wild life activities, foraging preying and mating, to keep genetic diversity intact. Activities in forest fringes have to be monitored with a view to minimising civilisational commercial interventions; official training/dedication is needed to become freed from commercial temptation; politicians here are lacking in perspective and idealism. Rain water harvesting in forest fringes facilitating all weather availability is necessary; water bodies have to be complementarily preserved in as much as wild corridors. Denudation of forests are known to be behind flooding and drought calamities. Preservation of flora and fauna in all their diversity is a part of preserving land fertility and promotion of agricultural productivity/diversity in India.