States fail to give Environment Ministry details on elephant reserves

Subject :Environment

Section : Biodiversity

The Elephant Range States across India, have ignored an 18-month-old instruction from the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), to furnish information on their Elephant Reserves.
The MoEFCC had, on January 12, 2021, written to the chief wildlife wardens of the Elephant Reserve States, to provide the details for the compilation of information on Elephant Reserves (ERs) by its Project Elephant Division.
Data uploaded on the Wildlife Institute of India’s website say the elephant population across 16 States in the country ranged between 27,785 and 31,368 in 2012. While Karnataka had up to 7,458 elephantsfollowed by Assam with 5,281, Maharashtra had only four.
India has 30 notified ERs, spread across 15 Elephant Range Sta There are also 10 sites for the MIKE (monitoring of illegal killing of elephants) programme, mandated by the Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
The MIKE sites are Chirang-Ripu and Dihing-Patkai in Assam, Deomali in Arunachal Pradesh, Garo Hills in Meghalaya, Eastern Dooars in West Bengal, Mayurbhanj in Odisha, Shivalik in Uttarakhand, Mysore in Karnataka, Wayanad in Kerala and Nilgiri in Tamil Nadu.

About Elephants:

Elephants are keystone species.
Asian and African Elephants are facing extinction due to illegal poaching for high demand of ivory, tusks & other body parts; as a result these both elephants are also listed in IUCN Red list of Threatened Species as ‘Endangered Asian Elephants’ and ‘Vulnerable African Elephants’
There are around 28,000 elephants in India with around 25% of them in Karnataka.
12 august is celebrated every year as World Elephant day worldwide.
Elephants have the longest gestation period of any mammal—22 months. Females give birth every four to five years.
Elephant herds have complex social structures, are led by matriarchs, and are comprised of a group of other adult females and calves, while male elephants tend to live in isolation or small bachelor groups.
Conservation Status of Indian Elephants:
- Wildlife Protection Act, 1972: Schedule I
- IUCN Red List: Endangered
- CITES: Appendix I
Project Elephant: It is a centrally sponsored scheme which was launched in 1992 for their protection.

MIKE (monitoring of illegal killing of elephants

It comes under CITES
It was started in South Asia in 2003 with the following objective:
- To measure levels and trends in illegal hunting of elephants.
- To determine changes in these trends overtime.
- To determine the factors causing or associated with these changes and to try and assess in particular to what extent observed trends are a result of any decisions taken by the Conference of the Parties to CITES.
In India, Project Elephant has been formally implementing MIKE
IUCN Red List of threatened species status- African elephants are listed as“vulnerable” and Asian elephants as “endangered”.
(CITES) status – Appendix I. Appendix I lists species that are the most endangered among CITES-listed animals and plants. They are threatened with extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens of these species except when the purpose of the import is not commercial, for instance for scientific research.
Project Elephant launched by the Government of India in the year 1992 as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.

Wildlife Institute of India

The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) is an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate change
It was established in 1982.
It is based in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
It offers training programs, academic courses, and advisory in wildlife research and management.