Elephants have been a part of Indian’s cultural heritage since time immemorial. It is considered to be one of the most suggestive cultural symbols of the Indian society. The Asian elephant, scientifically termed as Elephas maximus, once ranged across the Tigris-Euphrates in west Asia, eastward to the Yangtze Kiang and probably to northern China. In 1986, a renowned elephant expert from India, Raman Sukumar reported the presence of at least 21,000 wild elephants in the country. But in 2003, he reported that the habitat of this giant creature had shrunk drastically to a few pockets in the biologically rich tropical forests only. India still remains the country with the largest surviving population of Asian elephants. But, the number of populations and total number of individuals have gone down drastically in the past two and half decades. Today, the populations of Asian elephants in India are confined to certain pockets only. These scattered habitats can be clubbed into four regions – northern, northeastern, central and southern Indian regions.

Northeastern India houses a wide diversity of organisms including flora and fauna. Its high biodiversity has earned it a place among the hotspots of biodiversity. The estimated population of elephants in the North East in 1999 was about 11,000 – which was one of the largest populations in the Indian subcontinent. In 1996, scientists reported a large population of 3800-5800 elephants ranging along the Himalayan foothills from northern West Bengal, eastward through Assam, touching southern Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh and Manas National Park. But today, the situation is grim and the population of wild elephants in the Northeastern states has gone down in the last one and a half decades. A declining population trend of elephants is observed in six of the seven-sister states in the North East. North East India has lost 1890 elephants in one decade – between 1993 and 2003.

Corresponding to the huge body size, elephants need more food, water and a large area to forage. Elephants prefer mixed moist deciduous, semi-evergreen and grassland habitats. Elephants forage for their food in the forest and also graze in the open grasslands. Usually, they live in forests or grasslands, away from human populations. They come out of their habitat only if there is deficiency of food or water or if they are disturbed. During the wet season, food is available inside the forests and grasses in the plains are dry and old. Thus, the intensity of visits to the plains decreases during the wet season. In the early dry season, the appearance of new grasses attracts the elephants to visit the plains more because of the plentiful fresh young grass.

Around two and half decades back, the North East had good forest cover and elephants had continuous large patches of forests for foraging. There were plenty of food plants inside the forests and the wetlands were in good health. The growing human population, change of land use for cultivable lands and conversion of forests and wetlands to human habitation and agricultural land are now depriving this giant animal of its basic needs of habitat, food and water. The forest cover in Northeastern India is disappearing at an alarming rate. Approximately 1000 kms of forests in the North East are being destroyed every year. As a result, the incidents of elephant straying into human habitation in search of food and water have increased. ‘Human-Elephant Conflict’ (HEC) is the phrase used commonly to refer to a range of direct and indirect negative interactions between people and elephants which potentially harm both. The most publicised are crop damage by elephants and injury or death to people. When the paddy grains are in the milky stage, elephants come down to crop fields in search of food. Although paddy is not a natural food of elephants in the jungle, under stressful conditions they are forced to consume everything edible that they get. Thus, they taste paddy and develop a taste for it. Subsequently, it becomes a habit and they start visiting the crop fields during the milky stage. In popular terminology, this is described as ‘crop raid’ by elephants.

Habitat destruction by man has threatened the survival of the Asian elephant not only in Northeastern India, but throughout its range. It is now more or less established that encroachment; fragmentation, degradation and destruction of its habitat for human habitations and paddy fields; increased poaching of tusker for ivory and mass retaliatory action like poisoning of wild elephants are the major causes of elephants invading human habitations and HEC. The ultimate cause of habitat destruction is, however, the very rapid growth of human population. Every year, the already overburdened population of Northeastern India increases by more than half a million. A very high percentage of this population lives in rural areas (approximately 85%), with farming as the main occupation. Thus, the large-scale destruction of forest and wetland seems inevitable.

The problem of HEC in Assam is very acute in the bordering areas with Arunachal, Nagaland and Meghalaya. In the past few decades, rampant forest destruction has taken place in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Meghalaya Hills. Assam Forest Department and many NGOs are working in BTAD, Sonitpur, Darrang, Golaghat, Nagaon, Karbi Anglong, Goalpara and South Kamrup areas to mitigate the HEC issues. The major contributions so far in elephant conservation projects have been made by Aaranyak, WWF India, Eco-systems India and Centre for Environment Education. Mapping of the elephant corridors and depredated areas, estimation of the damage, compensation to depredated families, conservation education, village vigilance groups, electric fencing, bio-fencing with elephant deterrent species of plants, etc, have been tried out by various conservation groups.

Electric fencing helps in deterring elephant entry to villages. But, with the power deficient situation in Assam, electric fencing is not a practical solution. Bio-fencing with various crops has been successfully tried in different parts of the world. In South India and Orissa, some thorn bearing plants are planted around the crop land to prevent elephant entry. But these plants have no usefulness otherwise. Some cash crops like chilli, citrus, etc, have been successfully tried by some of the conservation researchers. Most of the Assam-Meghalaya, Assam-Arunachal and Assam-Nagaland bordering areas are suitable for cultivation of these cash crops that can deter elephants. On the other hand, plantation of elephant food plants in the fallow forest areas can bring back the lost habitat of the giant animal.

Conflict between elephant and man is a major conservation problem. In many of the areas in Assam, due to conflicts, crop raids, loss of human lives and properties, the local support for conservation is gradually eroding. From outside, it seems that people have already gone against conservation and elephant protection is a lost war. But, when this author interacted with the affected people, majority of them clearly said that they love elephants, they respect them, but when elephants destroy their crop field or houses or kill some family member, it is difficult to have patience. This statement of people clearly indicates that we can still win this war. People have not forgotten that the elephant is an inseparable part of the cultural heritage of India and they have also not forgotten that as being human beings, it is our responsibility to protect others. People still want that elephants survive in the jungles. There has to be strategic planning for achieving the goal of elephant conservation through people’s participation. If we want elephants to vacate our villages, human beings will first need to return the habitat to the elephants. It’s a herculean task ahead, but not impossible. Massive afforestation of fruit bearing (elephant food) plants and further halt in deforestation and filling up of wetlands should be the immediate steps taken by the Government. If we are really serious about conserving this giant heritage symbol of India, an integrated approach with the following components is the urgent call of the hour-

• Check in population by all means (if need be, impose strict laws like China).

• Mass education to teach people values of conserving elephants.

• Restoration of habitat by massive plantation and halt in deforestation.

• Conserving the natural water-holes that provide drinking water to animals.

• Strict land use policy, so that wildlife areas cannot be converted for any other purpose by any means whatsoever by any person.

• Bio-fencing with elephant deterrent cash crops.

• Creating vigilance groups in depredation areas, so that loss of crops, property and life can be minimised.

• Immediate compensation and treatment facilities to affected people.

• Insuring crops, properties and lives of the people in the affected areas.

(The writer is the Regional Programme Coordinator of Centre for Environment Education for Northeastern India).

simanta.kalita@gmail.com,

simanta.kalita@ceeindia.org

Simanta Kalita