Conservation Priorities

Status | Threats | Elephants in religion & culture

Many measures have been taken to protect and conserve this mega-herbivore.

Anti-poaching efforts
Poaching is a major threat to the Asian elephants. Anti-poaching efforts should be taken up at the divisional level and the existing legislation should be strengthened, giving ample powers to the wildlife managers in curbing the crime. The anti-poaching units of the forest departments need to be strengthened with necessary monetary help, training and equipment assistance. The anti-poaching squads have to be provided with sufficient arms, ammunition, communication equipment and vehicles. Well-trained and motivated guards and foresters should be involved in anti-poaching activity. Inter-state and trans-national anti-poaching intelligence wings should be established. Poachers often use the knowledge and skills of the local people to track and kill elephants. The locals should be educated on the evils of poaching and involved in anti-poaching efforts. Greater understanding should be fostered between the forest officials and the local community. Wherever needed, more anti-poaching squads should be established. The demand for ivory has a direct impact on the number of elephants poached. This demand should be completely cut and all illegal ivory trade should be monitored and necessary counter action taken. It is very essential to understand the ivory trade routes and impress upon ivory consuming countries that their insatiable need for ivory is fuelling the extinction of the species altogether. Poaching should be discouraged by taking stringent action against the poachers and others cooperating with them.

Alleviation of human-elephant conflict
The most common types of elephant control are noise, elephant-proof trenches (EPT), electrified fences (e-fence), and capture or culling of rogue elephants. EPT's are the most widely used technique, with the trench approximately 2 m deep, 1 m wide at the bottom, and 3 m wide at the top of its sloping sides. E-fences probably function more as a psychological than a physical barrier as elephants learn that the wires produce regular short-duration high-voltage shocks on contact, and these fences perform effectively as long as they are maintained properly. Community electric fencing can be undertaken to keep elephants away from agricultural lands. The local community can take up the task of maintaining the fence and improve its efficiency. 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.

Compensating people for crop/property damage and human injury/death is a viable and practical option where human -elephant conflict is low. In some areas, elephant scaring squads equipped with firearms, fire crackers, vehicles and kumkies (tamed elephants used to chase or capture wild elephants) are used to chase elephants away from the crop fields and plantations. In some areas rubble walls are also used to prevent elephant entry to certain areas. More recently, chemical repellent sprays have been tested with some success on raiding elephants in Africa. The same has to be tested on Asian elephants. Often troublesome elephants are captured and removed from the local population in order to alleviate local conflict. The idea of a mechanical steel fence using old railway tracks is also being given due consideration.

Maintaining Habitat Integrity
In recent years, efforts to prevent loss of forest or preserve wildlife corridors have included outright purchase of land, rejection of local development plans by the federal government, or public interest litigation through the judiciary to halt harmful developmental projects. Studies show that landscape parameters including the ratios of elephant population size, total forest cover, length of forest edge, size and type of crop fields, natural habitat degradation and fragmentation, water availability and distribution, home range constraints faced by migrating elephants such as migratory bottlenecks are all important in analyzing and pre-empting conflict situations. Land use policies in elephant habitats must be made clear to prevent further fragmentation of habitat or escalation of elephant-human conflict. The policies should be pragmatic enough to allow smaller fragmented forest patches to be taken up for development in order to maintain larger habitats intact. All developments in elephant habitats should be undertaken without affecting the corridors / traditional migratory routes of elephants. Wherever needed land should be purchased or notified to augment existing corridors. Local residents should be involved in corridor conservation by providing them incentives for maintaining their lands as corridors. Elephant population management - including the capture and translocation of herds from fragmented patches, the capture of notorious raiding bulls, or the occasional destruction of an animal that is a threat to human life - is essential in order to minimize conflict. This would also promote relations between local residents and wildlife managers.

Awareness programmes
Communicating ecological and environmental principles to the people has become very crucial to Asian elephant conservation. Many elephant range countries have started elephant conservation awareness programmes. PROJECT ELEPHANT, an exclusive elephant conservation scheme of the Government of India, undertakes school outreach through organizations like Center for Environmental Education, organizing various activities (camps, competitions, etc) and distributing promotional material (stickers, leaflets, etc). Many National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries have their own awareness activities. Malaysia has established Elephant Conservation Centers, which are involved in educating the public about elephant conservation through audio-visual presentations, and eco-tourism. The cause of the Asian elephant is also being highlighted through promoting them as 'keystone' or 'flagship' species. It is being accorded its due publicity in international meetings and symposia. Certain government departments and private institutions also publish commemorative issues to help bring more awareness about elephant conservation. The Karnataka Forest Department (Karnataka State, southern India) for instance brought out a commemorative issue on the tenth anniversary of Project Elephant. Print, audio and visual media also give it tremendous publicity. Different countries have their own systems of legislation that help protect these threatened animals, also creating more awareness of the elephants and its conservation among the common masses.

Policies
Land use policies in elephant habitats must be made clear to prevent further fragmentation of habitat or escalation of elephant-human conflict. People’s traditional tolerance towards the elephants should be safeguarded by compensating their losses and involving them in conservation and management activities. Efforts should be taken to protect corridors / traditional migratory routes of elephants. Corridors play a crucial role in maintaining elephant habitats and their interconnections, which would ensure minimum viable elephant populations. Wherever needed land should be purchased or notified to augment existing corridors. Local residents should be involved in corridor conservation by providing them incentives for maintaining their lands as corridors. Poaching should be controlled through improved infrastructure for anti-poaching units and stringent action against the offenders.

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