Need for Long Elephant Corridors

UPSC Syllabus: Gs Paper 3- Environment

Introduction

Elephants naturally travel long distances in search of food, water and suitable habitats. However, infrastructure, mining and changing land use are increasingly disrupting their traditional movement routes. This can fragment habitats and push elephants towards farms and human settlements, increasing human-elephant conflict. The Supreme Court’s direction for a fresh survey has renewed focus on protecting long and unobstructed elephant corridors.

Elephant Movement, Corridors and Their Current Status

1. Large Movement Range: A male elephant’s average home range extends between 50 and 300 square kilometres, depending on food, water, shelter and other available resources.
2. Seasonal Resource Movement: The seasonal and spatial availability of food, water and habitat strongly influences the direction and extent of elephant movement.
3. Migration During Dry Periods: During dry months, elephants commonly migrate into Kerala to access food and water in the relatively moist Western Ghats forests.
4. Impact of Drought and Climate: Climate-related changes and drought have historically forced elephant herds to move towards areas offering better resources.
5. Meaning of Elephant Corridors: Elephant corridors are movement pathways connecting two natural habitats, allowing elephants to move between different habitat areas.
6. India’s Major Elephant Landscapes: India has four principal elephant landscapes—Western Ghats; North-Eastern Hills and Brahmaputra floodplains; Shivalik Hills and Gangetic plains; and Central India and Eastern Ghats.
7. Elephant Concentration in the Western Ghats: More than 50% of India’s 22,446 elephants occur in the Western Ghats, including Karnataka (6,013), Tamil Nadu (3,136) and Kerala (2,785).
8. Changing Distribution in Central India: Elephant movement expanded in Central India from the mid-to-late 1980s, first after drought and later due to mining pressures.

Significance of Long and Unobstructed Elephant Corridors

1. Connecting Fragmented Habitats: Corridors provide connectivity between fragmented natural habitats, allowing elephant populations to move instead of remaining separated in isolated habitat areas.
2. Supporting Natural Dispersal: Corridors allow elephants to disperse naturally between habitats as part of their regular movement across wider landscapes.
3. Maintaining Genetic Diversity: Movement between different elephant populations enables genetic exchange, helping maintain diversity within the overall population pool.
4. Access to Natural Resources: Well-conserved corridors provide access to natural food and water, especially when seasonal conditions affect resource availability.
5. Supporting Long-Distance Movement: Long corridors are essential because elephant herds naturally travel over large areas and may move across different states.
6. Reducing Pressure on Croplands: Access to connected natural habitats can prevent elephants from entering crop fields while searching for food and water.
7. Reducing Human-Elephant Conflict: Unobstructed movement through natural habitats can reduce encounters between elephants and human settlements, helping limit conflict.

Major Concerns Affecting Elephant Corridors

1. Infrastructure and Physical Barriers: Highways, railway lines, canals, power lines, walls and electric fences can disrupt or block traditional elephant routes, pushing herds towards farms and settlements.
2. Mining and Industrial Activity: Mining and industrial activities can fragment elephant habitats and disturb movement between connected forest areas.
3. Land-Use Changes: Agriculture, plantations and other land-use changes are increasingly fragmenting habitats and altering traditional elephant movement routes.
4. Western Ghats Fragmentation: Changing land use, coffee and tea plantations, invasive plants and farmland fencing are rapidly fragmenting elephant habitats in this landscape.
5. Shivalik and Brahmaputra Region: Railway lines, roads, power infrastructure and land-use changes have disrupted traditional corridors and fragmented habitats in these areas.
6. Habitat Loss in Central India: Habitat loss and mining pressures have driven elephants from Jharkhand and Odisha into Chhattisgarh over the last two decades.
7. Expansion into New Areas: Elephants later expanded into Umaria and Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, showing changing movement patterns.

Initiatives for Corridor Mapping and Protection

1. National Corridor Mapping: The government’s major 2023 mapping exercise documented 150 elephant corridors across 15 states within India’s four major elephant landscapes.
2. Identification of Corridor Bottlenecks: A Southern India report mapped barriers across 32 corridors, helping identify pressures affecting elephant movement.
3. West Bengal’s Corridor Network: West Bengal has the highest number of identified corridors, with 26 corridors located across its northern and southern regions.
4. Charmar-Jingol Corridor: This 20-km-long and 2.5-km-wide corridor supports the movement of an estimated 80–100 elephants from Odisha into Chhattisgarh.
5. Emerging Corridor in Bihar: The Jamui–Jhajha–Chakayi forest stretch was included in the national corridor list in 2023, showing the identification of emerging elephant movement routes.
6. Existing Government Guidelines: The Environment Ministry has issued mandatory guidelines to ensure seamless and unobstructed elephant corridors across different states.
7. Supreme Court’s Fresh Survey: The Supreme Court directed the Union government to conduct a fresh survey and submit a comprehensive report on preventing corridor obstructions.
8. Review of Coercive Measures: The Court also sought details of steps taken against fireballs, spikes, firearms and other coercive methods used to divert elephants.

Way Forward

1. Conduct Detailed Field-Based Mapping: Mapped corridors should be refined through ground studies, GPS telemetry, occupancy surveys and participatory mapping to identify their actual boundaries.
2. Provide Suitable Legal Protection: Clearly identified corridors can be protected through appropriate legal frameworks to regulate land-use changes and incompatible development activities.
3. Secure Land in Critical Corridors: Where corridors pass through private or agricultural land, suitable mechanisms such as land purchase, lease or other arrangements can support connectivity.
4. Restore Degraded Corridor Areas: Native vegetation should be restored, invasive species removed, and water and habitat cover improved in ecologically degraded stretches.
5. Reduce Barriers from Linear Infrastructure: Roads, railways, power lines and other infrastructure should adopt suitable mitigation measures to maintain safe elephant movement across corridors.
6. Involve Local Communities: Communities affected by elephant movement should be involved through participation, awareness, compensation and support for crop and land-use concerns.
7. Strengthen Monitoring and Adaptive Management: GPS collars, camera traps, drones, occupancy studies and community reporting can help track corridor use and identify areas needing intervention.
8. Improve Inter-State and Inter-Agency Coordination: Corridors crossing forest divisions, districts and states require joint action plans and coordination among concerned authorities.
9. Integrate Corridors with Elephant Conservation Plans: Corridor protection should be incorporated into broader Elephant Conservation Plans, linking habitat protection with conflict management and other conservation measures.
10. Strengthen Research, Technology and Funding: Research on elephant movement, corridor design and climate impacts, along with monitoring technology and adequate funding, can strengthen corridor conservation.

Conclusion

Long and unobstructed corridors are essential for elephant movement, access to resources, natural dispersal and genetic exchange. Their fragmentation can isolate habitats and push elephants towards farms and settlements. Therefore, fresh surveys, removal of bottlenecks, effective implementation of guidelines and coordinated action are necessary to protect elephant corridors and reduce human-elephant conflict.

Question for practice:

Discuss the need for long and unobstructed elephant corridors in India and the challenges involved in their protection.

Source: Indian Express