The task force, led by Mahesh Rangarajan, submitted its report to the environment and forests ministry and recommended that land corridors used by elephants in the wild while moving through forest patches should be secured as community and conservation reserves under the Wildlife Protection Act. The 12-member panel also recommended declaring existing elephant reserves as Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA) under Environment Protection Act. Declaring an area as ESA ensures that the land-use pattern of the patch gets locked in and cannot be altered without prior permission of authorities. The committee warned that government should not try to buy out these important corridors or turn them into national parks and sanctuaries. Elephant reserves are usually much larger in size than tiger reserves and do not get the same level of protection. The elephant populations (herds and individuals) roam over large distances, unlike the tiger, and often move through populated areas.

Unlike in the case of the tiger, the elephant population has not declined. However, increased human-elephant conflicts leading to crop depredation and increasing injuries and deaths along with skewed sex ratios of the pachyderms due to poaching of males for the tusks are a case for worry.

Accepting the report, environment minister Jairam Ramesh said, “We will soon declare elephant as a national heritage animal as it has been part of our heritage since ages. We need to give the same degree of importance to the elephant as is given to the tiger in order to protect the big animal.”

An amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act would be made to set up the recommended NECA. “We will introduce it (amendment) in the winter session of Parliament,” Ramesh said.

TRUNK CALL

Key recommendations

of the government’s

Elephant Task Force

National Elephant Bring corridors under Conservation community reserves or Authority to be set up conservation reserves

Consortium of Rs 600cr budget in Elephant Research and the 12th Plan, Rs 200cr Estimation to do for securing corridors studies on the Rs 100 crore to be pachyderm spent on reducing

Declare elephant man-elephant conflicts reserves ‘ecologically Full-time conflict sensitive areas’ and management task lock land use forces in regions