The Union Environment Ministry will make a recent push to curb unnatural elephant deaths by taking on observe casualties with the Railway Ministry and holding workshops throughout the nation to deal with human-elephant battle, sources stated.
The choices had been taken on the seventeenth steering committee assembly of Project Elephant which was held at Periyar National Park in Kerala Friday. The assembly was chaired by Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav.
As per the final rely in 2017, India has 29,964 elephants. Yadav stated that on a median, 500 individuals are killed yearly by elephants and about 100 elephants are killed in retaliation. “To find a long-term solution, we are revisiting the elephant corridors of the country and have finished more than 50 per cent of the task involving key stakeholders in this endeavour,” he stated.
Marking World Elephant Day at an occasion in Periyar, Yadav Friday additionally introduced the creation of a brand new elephant reserve. Agasthyamalai in Tamil Nadu will probably be India’s thirty second elephant reserve and the state’s fifth.
Sources stated the steering committee has determined to arrange a panel to look into the deaths of elephants in Odisha and Jharkhand and furnish an in depth report back to the Center by September 10.
Odisha has reported 13 circumstances of unnatural elephant deaths prior to now two months, with 5 deaths brought on by poaching. Last 12 months, its Environment Minister, Bikram Keshari Arukh, knowledgeable the Assembly that 406 elephants died within the state owing to a number of causes within the final 5 years. These deaths had been brought on by accidents with trains and electrocution, amongst others. Jharkhand, in the meantime, has traditionally seen a excessive stage of human-elephant battle.
An problem of concern
Elephant casualties because of unnatural or man-made causes have lengthy been a problem within the nation. The human toll can be appreciable. According to knowledge furnished by Yadav in Parliament throughout this Monsoon Session, 1,578 individuals have died in elephant assaults within the final three years. In the identical interval, 222 elephants have died from electrocution, 45 in prepare accidents, 29 from poaching and 11 attributable to poisoning.
The steering committee has additionally determined that separate administration plans for elephants needs to be developed and included in administration plans of reserves, nationwide parks, sanctuaries and the working plans of territorial divisions.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the meantime, acknowledged World Elephant Day by a sequence of tweets – “On #WorldElephantDay, reiterating our dedication to guard the elephant. You can be completely satisfied to know that India homes about 60% of all Asian elephants. The variety of elephant reserves has risen within the final 8 years. I additionally laud all these concerned in defending elephants,” he stated.
,
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
