List of Elephant Reserves in India: Learn about Project Elephant, conservation and more!

Central Government-sponsored scheme Project Elephant was launched in February 1992. Under this project, the government of India works for the management and protection of the Elephants in the states having wild elephants in a free-ranging population. This project ensures the protection of the Elephant corridors and elephant habitat for the survival of elephants in wildlife. This conservation strategy of elephants was implemented in 16 to 28 states all over the country. In this article, we will be discussing the objectives and goals of the elephant reserves in India.

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You may also read the Most Important List of Lists for Government Exams. Elephants in India consume mostly grasses, as well as a lot of tree bark, roots, leaves, and small branches. Bananas, rice, and sugarcane are among the crops that Indian elephants love. They pursue a course that gets them closer to a source of fresh water since they need to drink at least once a day. Elephant populations are declining due to ongoing deforestation and a lack of suitable habitat. Therefore, there are various Elephant reserves to prevent this decline. Let's look at the list of Elephant Reserves in India to learn more about the causes. 

 

 

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The aim of this project

• To ensure the protection of elephants from hunters and poachers, and prevent the illegal trade of ivory. It also includes the strategy to prevent unnatural causes of death of elephants in India.
• To develop and promote scientific and planned management strategies for the conservation of elephants.
• To mitigate and prevent the increasing conflict between humans and elephants in elephant habitats. It also aims to reduce and remove the pressure of human and domestic livestock grazing and other activities in important elephant habitats.
• To ensure ecological restoration of the natural elephant habitats and their migratory routes.
• To promote scientific research on issues related to the conservation of elephants and promotion of public awareness and education on these issues.
• To ensure the proper health care and breeding of domesticated elephants. To facilitate veterinary care and Eco-development for the elephants.

Elephant Corridors in India

• In India, there are around 88 elephant corridors. Elephants use approximately 77.3% of these routes regularly. One-third of these are of high ecological importance, while the remaining two-thirds are of medium importance.
• Because of habitat fragmentation, these elephant habitats are in peril. Northern West Bengal has the worst difficulty, followed by North-Western India, North-Eastern India, and Central India. South India had the least fragmentation.
• In South India, protected areas or reserved forests cover 65% of the elephant corridor. However, only 10% of elephant corridors in the Central Area are entirely within the forest, whereas 90% are shared by the forest, farmland, and settlements. In total, just 24% of elephant corridors in India have complete forest cover.

Distribution Of Elephants

Asian elephants were believed to be widely distributed - from Tigris - Euphrates in West Asia eastward through Persia into the Indian sub-continent, South and Southeast Asia including Sri Lanka, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and up to North China. However, currently, they are confined to the Indian Subcontinent, South East Asia, and some Asian Islands - Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Malaysia. About 60% of the Asian elephant population is in India.

Old literature indicates that even during the Moghul period, elephants were found all over India including many parts of Central India like Marwar, Chanderi, Satwas, Bijagarh, and Panna. However, the current distribution of wild elephants in India is confined to South India; North East including North West Bengal; Central Indian states of Odisha, South WB, and Jharkhand; and North West India in Uttarakhand and UP.

 

Major threats to elephant corridors

• Issues such as elephant habitat loss, which is causing fragmentation and destruction mostly as a result of development activities such as the construction of roads, trains, buildings, vacation resorts, and electric fences, among others.
• Coal and iron ore mining have been identified as the single greatest threat to the Elephant Corridor in Central India. States including Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Orissa are mineral-rich, but they also have the most elephant corridors, which leads to elephant-human conflict.
• Because elephants require a large amount of grazing ground for sustenance, a scarcity of such grazing grounds may compel elephants to seek food elsewhere. Most elephant sanctuaries are insufficient to house all of the elephants, resulting in man-elephant conflict owing to crop devastation by elephants.

Mitigation strategies

• Wherever possible, combine elephant paths with surrounding protected areas and conserved forests. In some locations, the establishment of ecologically sensitive areas or conservation reserves is required to protect elephant corridors.
• Securing the elephant corridors would necessitate raising awareness and sensitizing the local populace to encourage voluntary displacement outside of conflict zones. This will avoid the problem of increased fragmentation of continuous forest habitats due to human intrusion. It would also give a haven for other wild animals like tigers, sambars, crocodiles, and several bird species.

The species is listed as a protected species under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, as well as in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES).

According to recent statistics, the elephant population in India is showing a consistent trend across elephant reserves. The elephant population was projected to be 31,368 in 2012, but it has declined to 27312 in 2017. In 2007, India had a population of 27,682 elephants. Throughout the period, the average population was around 26700 people. A variation in counting methodology has been blamed for the disparity in figures. Manipur, Mizoram, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and other states reported sightings for the first time in 2017.

The Union government constituted an Elephant Task Force (ETF) in 2010 under the leadership of historian Mahesh Rangarajan to review the existing policy of elephant conservation in India and formulate future interventions. Dr Mahesh Rangarajan, a wildlife historian and political analyst, led the ETF. Conservation and animal welfare activists, elephant biologists, and a veterinarian were among the other members.

The aim of this program:

To bring pragmatic solutions for the conservation of elephants in the long term.

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