The Elephant Range States across India, have ignored an 18-month-old instruction from the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), to furnish information on their Elephant Reserves.
The MoEFCC had, on January 12, 2021, written to the chief wildlife wardens of the Elephant Reserve States, to provide the details for the compilation of information on Elephant Reserves (ERs) by its Project Elephant Division.
The information sought included history and background of establishing the ERs; the date of notification of their notification; the area notified; and the number of circles, forest divisions, ranges, private or revenue land within the reserves.
Apart from the map of each ER, the States were also asked to provide within January 30, 2022, the total population of elephants, threats, challenges and issues in these ERs, five-year data on human-elephant conflicts, and management interventions done by the forest departments, to conserve elephants.
Replying to an application filed by an Assam-based activist under the Right to Information Act, the MoEFCC said on July 27, that it was yet to receive any information on the ERs from the Elephant Range States.
Ramesh Pandey, the Inspector-General of Project Elephant in the MoEFCC declined to say what the Ministry would do about the indifference of the Elephant Range States.
Wildlife Institute data
Data uploaded on the Wildlife Institute of India’s website say the elephant population across 16 States in the country ranged between 27,785 and 31,368 in 2012. While Karnataka had up to 7,458 elephants followed by Assam with 5,281, Maharashtra had only four.
India has 30 notified ERs, spread across 15 Elephant Range States. There are also 10 sites for the MIKE (monitoring of illegal killing of elephants) programme, mandated by the Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
The MIKE sites are Chirang-Ripu and Dihing-Patkai in Assam, Deomali in Arunachal Pradesh, Garo Hills in Meghalaya, Eastern Dooars in West Bengal, Mayurbhanj in Odisha, Shivalik in Uttarakhand, Mysore in Karnataka, Wayanad in Kerala and Nilgiri in Tamil Nadu.
