Project Elephant in India

About

• One of the notable conservation efforts in the country aimed at conserving the population and habitats of elephants is Project Elephant, a project initiated in 1992 by the Government of India. 
• The project aims to protect these great animals against poaching and habitat destruction, as well as mitigate the conflict between elephants and local communities. 
• Project Elephant manages to provide safe and sustainable habitats in which to develop their territory by creating and managing protected areas and wildlife corridors to guarantee the presence of elephants. 

Objectives

• To help the States to possess wild elephant populations, and to secure the long-term survival of the identified viable elephant population in their natural habitats.
• To deal with man-animal conflict.
• To come up with scientific and planned measures for the conservation of elephants.
• To ensure the elephants are not poached, to overcome the illegal ivory trade, and to address other unnatural causes of death.

Elephant Corridor

• An elephant corridor is a length or a slender path of forested (or otherwise) land that is used to access the larger areas with the elephants and provides a route through which the animals move.
• The report Elephant Corridors of India 2023 lists 150 Elephant Corridors in India.
• Elephant Corridors are threatened by the poaching of animals.

Corridor Protection Strategies

• Merging the corridors with the adjoining protected areas wherever practicable; otherwise, proclaim as Ecologically Sensitive Areas or conservation reserves to afford protection.
• Through the animal movement monitoring, restoration work of the habitat must also be conducted during the process of securing a corridor, depending on the necessity; some will also depend on the need.
• To gain control over the corridors, it involves sensitizing the local communities on the alternative of voluntary relocation out of the warring areas to less risky places.
• Stopping the further division of the continuous forest habitat by urban development.

Efforts to save Elephants

• Observation of the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) Program:

• • • The COP resolution of CITES requires this program; the MIKE program began in South Asia in 2003 so that the information required by the elephant range States to make proper decisions on managing the population, and also to establish institutional capacity in the range States to manage the population in the long-term.

• Haathi Mere Saathi Campaign

• • • It is a campaign initiated by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). 
    • The E-8 nations included India, Botswana, the Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Thailand. This public venture was to create awareness among people and establish friendship and companionship between the people and the elephants.

• Project RE-HAB in Assam

• • Following the success of the pioneering Project RE-HAB (Reducing Elephant-Human Attacks using Bees) in Karnataka, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has replicated the project in Assam.
  • RE-HAB was introduced on 15 March 2021 in 11 sites in the Kodagu district of Karnataka. It cut by more than 70 percent the number of elephant attacks of elephants in a span of six months only.

Elephant Reserves in India

• Elephant Reserves in India are places that are designated to preserve the Asian elephant and its habitat.
• These elephant reserves in India were formed as part of the Project Elephant which was introduced in 1992 as a measure to prevent poaching and habitat degradation of the elephants as well as the coexistence of the reserve and the local populations.
• These wildlife reserves of elephants in India are very important in keeping biodiversity, ecological balance as well as the survival of this great species of animals.

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