Centre’s Action Plan to Deal with Elephants in Southern States
The forest authorities are trying to capture a wild elephant in the Chittoor area, as it is destroying crops and attacking people and even destroying the crops.
Vijayawada: Central government is evolving a regional action plan to deal with the inter-state migration of elephants within the four southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, apart from their conservation, conflict management and protection
For the purpose, the union Environment ministry has appointed a committee comprising three retired principal chief conservators of forests from Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, a member from World Wildlife Fund, a senior official of the ministry, and wildlife expert Rakesh Kalla.
AP’s additional principal chief conservator of forests Shanti Priya Pande will be nodal officer of the committee.
As part of its exercise, the committee will make a field study of Chittoor, Tirupati and Annamayya districts from July 8 to July 11. Committee members will monitor the movement of elephants in all the four states and hold brainstorming sessions ahead of formulating the regional action plan.
The committee will study the inter-state movement of elephants, especially from forests of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka into the forests of AP, issues of man-elephant conflicts, straying of the jumbos into human habitations and eating or destroying crops, and the pachyderms crossing the national highways and becoming vulnerable to road accidents.
Members of the committee are expected to submit a draft action plan to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in the next two to three months. Based on it, the MoEF will come up with a regional action plan to deal with the elephants in all the four southern states.
In the interim, forest authorities are planning to develop an early warning system on the movement of the herds of elephants from state to state and also within the state. In case of migration of herds of elephants from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to AP, the forest officials in those states will alert their counterparts in AP, so that the latter can monitor the movement of the jumbos and take adequate safety measures, including sending SMS alerts to farmers in the area on their mobile phones about the movement of elephants.
The messages will also go to other stakeholder departments like revenue and energy. Energy officials will then be able shut down power to ensure safety of the pachyderms.
In gram panchayats, authorities are even planning to arrange huge bells, whose ringing will alert the villagers about elephants being near, so that they can avoid any conflict with the elephants.
Currently, forest authorities are trying to capture a wild elephant in the Chittoor area, as it is destroying crops and attacking people and even destroying the crops. In the interim, four kumki elephants brought from Karnataka and the three within AP are being made familiar with the area. They are expected to be deployed within the next two to three months to drive away the wild elephants into the forest from human habitations.
