As Asiatic elephants are here to stay, Madhya Pradesh learns to co-exist with them
- November 23, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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As Asiatic elephants are here to stay, Madhya Pradesh learns to co-exist with them
Subject :Environment
Context-
- To peacefully coexist with wild Asiatic elephants, Madhya Pradesh is gearing up to launch a bunch of measures ranging from a mobile app for speedy disposal of damages to launching an elephant manual putting in place the roles and duties of various departments and ensuring minimum man-elephant conflict.
Migration of Elephants in MP-
- MP is looking for developing an app like Karnataka’s e-Parihara app.
- An elephant task force constituted in 2021 pointed out that the migration of wild elephants into MP is part of the ongoing dispersal and large-scale movement of elephants in the east-central region in India, which visibly began in the 1980s with elephants from Jharkhand moving into the West Bengal and Sarguja district of erstwhile MP.
- Since then, wild tuskers have continued to move from Jharkhand and Odisha into Chhattisgarh and onwards into MP.
- Wild elephants began coming to MP’sSidhi, Singrauli and Shahdol districts, wherein they would stay for 2-3 months and then return to Chhattisgarh.
- But this changed in 2017 when a herd of seven elephants did not leave MP and continued to stay in Sanjay Dubri Tiger Reserve of Sidhi.
- In 2018, another herd of 40 elephants entered MP and began residing in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Umaria.
- This herd has now increased to nearly 50 elephants.
Current Data on Elephants in India:
- According to the last count in 2017, there were 29,964 elephants in India. Which is a slight increase from 2012’s mean of 29,576 elephants.
Asian Elephants:
- Three subspecies of Asian elephants are the Indian, Sumatran and Sri Lankan.
- The Indian subspecies have the widest range and account for the majority of the remaining elephants on the continent.
- Global Population: Estimated 20,000 to 40,000.
- Protection Status:
- IUCN Red List: Endangered.
- Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972: Schedule I.
- CITES Appendix I
African Elephants:
- Two subspecies of African elephants, the Savanna (or bush) elephant and the Forest elephant.
- Global Population: Around 4,00,000.
- Earlier in July 2020, Botswana (Africa) witnessed the death of hundreds of elephants.
- Protection Status:
- IUCN Red List Status:
- African Savanna Elephant: Endangered.
- African Forest Elephant: Critically Endangered
- IUCN Red List Status:
- CITES: Appendix II
Concerns:
- Escalation of poaching.
- Habitat loss.
- Human-elephant conflict.
- Mistreatment in captivity.
- Abuse due to elephant tourism.
- Rampant mining, Corridor destruction.
Steps Taken for Conservation:
- Declaration and establishment of various elephant reserves across the states.
- Cleaning areas from lantana and eupatorium (invasive species) as they prevent the growth of grass for elephants to feed on.
- Barricades to prevent man-elephant conflicts.
- Measures for the establishment of a cell to study forest fire prevention.
- The Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) programme, launched in 2003, is an international collaboration that tracks trends in information related to the illegal killing of elephants from across Africa and Asia, to monitor the effectiveness of field conservation efforts.
- Project Elephant: It is a centrally sponsored scheme and was launched in February 1992 for the protection of elephants, their habitats and corridors.
- The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change provides financial and technical support to major elephant range states in the country through the project.