Madikeri: Fragmentation of forest areas, particularly in the northern parts of Kodagu, is one of the main reasons for the increased man-elephant conflict in the district, outgoing Deputy Conservator of Forests B.B. Mallesh said here on Wednesday.
Addressing presspersons here, he said that there were more than 40 elephants in the fragmented forest areas of Shanivarasante and Kodlipet of Madikeri division.
Those elephants were moving into Hassan district and returning to Kodagu frequently. As many as 109 villages in the division were affected by the elephant menace, Mr. Mallesh said.
Elephant conservation efforts had been successful over a period of years, he said and added that from around 16,000 elephants, the population had crossed the 17,500-mark in the country as revealed by the 2007 Census. However, the habitat had shrunk due to various reasons, including encroachments. Lack of fodder, water, encroachment of elephant corridors, extension of agriculture, horticulture and allied activities, introduction of teak, acacia plantations, loss of elephant corridors resulting in restriction of seasonal migration, construction of roads, reservoirs, activities such as mining, quarrying, forest fires, poaching and smuggling were among the reasons for elephants straying into crop and human habitation areas, he said.
Mr. Mallesh said that a nine-strand solar fencing put up in a place in Tamil Nadu proved had to be a good barrier for preventing elephants from straying. Substandard and cheap solar fencing put up in parts of the State had failed to deliver the goods.
Population control methods were difficult to undertake as a means to curb the menace, he said. Improving habitat, providing crop insurance, and life insurance cover in the affected areas, giving a realistic compensation to the kin of the dead, and reimbursing crop loss by bringing them under the natural calamity fund relief scheme, creation of elephant corridors by buying land for re-establishing the old elephant corridors, were some of the methods to bring down instances of man-elephant conflict. There were two elephant corridors in Kodagu. One from Nagarahole to Doddabetta on the Hassan border and the other from Nagarahole to Bisle Ghat.
The Cheryl Nath Report that all elephants in the north of Kodagu (Shanivarasante, Kodlipet areas) should be translocated to distant national parks had not yet come through, Mr. Mallesh said.
