Whole village to be moved from elephant corridor in India

Villagers voluntarily relocate from elephant corridor 

The region is home to some 1800 elephants

May 2013. Marking a significant milestone in efforts to secure a crucial elephant corridor in northeast India, residents of an entire village have literally put down in stone their willingness to relocate voluntarily outside the corridor to provide a clear passage for elephants.

Modern traditional houses

The foundation stone for a model ethnic village was laid down, marking the site of relocation of the Ram Terang villagers from the Kalapahar Doigurung Elephant Corridor. The village will have traditional style houses reflecting the culture of the area, but it will also be equipped with modern facilities and necessities such as electricity, health care and education.

Unveiling the foundation stone in the relocated area

Laying the foundation stone, Rechno Haising Ronghang, the 40th King of Karbi Anglong said, "This is a new step that will benefit wildlife as well as people. There should be no barrier when it comes to wildlife conservation. We need to think of it as something that is necessary for human survival too." He congratulated the team for the initiative that will benefit the people of the corridor areas.

People of the village celebrating their impending move

The Kalapahar-Doigurung Elephant Corridor connects Kalapahar with Doigurung-Nambor Wildlife Sanctuary and Kaziranga National Park. For 30 years the village of Ram Terang, named after the head of the village, has been situated in the middle of the corridor. As a result, human-elephant conflicts have been common and with regular loss of property and life for both the elephants and the humans.

1800 elephants

"There are about 1800 elephants in the Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong landscape making it the habitat of about 8% of India's elephants. Securing this corridor is not just about the right of passage for these elephants but also to relieve local people of losses caused due to conflicts", said Dr Bhaskar Choudhury, Regional Head (Assam).

The process of course, reaching up to this milestone was not an easy one. It began about three years ago.

"The villagers were very hesitant at first when we approached them with the idea of relocation, and naturally so, as it involved their complete overhaul of their livelihoods. However, eventually they understood the need and benefits of the efforts for animals as well as themselves. Many individuals and agencies played a very crucial role in achieving this, and we are extremely grateful to all of them," said Dilip Deori, Assistant Manager, WTI, while expressing his appreciation for the support and cooperation being shown by the local community and organisations.

The project was supported by Elephant Family, IUCN - Netherlands and Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund, and implemented by Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), to assist the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council and Assam Forest Department in wildlife conservation in the region.

Source: http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/elephant-village013.html#cr

Buying land to return it to nature

Ananda Banerjee,  Live Mint

Some government, non-government bodies, individuals are trying to push back against relentless development

WTI purchased 26 acres of land along the Thirunelli-Kudrakote corridor in Kerala to restore the degraded habitat
and protect wildlife. Photo courtesy WTI

Given the relentless pace at which wildlife habitat is being devoured by the march of development, some government agencies, non-governmental organizations and individuals have been trying to push back—by buying land and letting nature reclaim it.

The past decade has seen a conscious effort to secure wildlife habitats to protect forests.
A recent exercise involved the purchase of 26 acres along the Thirunelli-Kudrakote wildlife corridor in the Wayanad district of Kerala that comes under the watch of the non-profit Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). In the past few months, camera traps have recorded three tigers crossing the corridor.

The land was purchased by WTI with the help of the World Land Trust (WTL), IUCN-Netherlands and the Elephant Family to restore the degraded habitat and protect wildlife along the stretch. The 38 families in four villages in the area were relocated to an alternative site. The exercise cost in excess of Rs.2 crore.

Corridors between two sanctuaries (protected areas) are absolutely critical to wildlife for species dispersal, allowing exchange of individuals between populations and preventing inbreeding, among other ecosystem linkages. The land bought by WTI is gradually being handed over to the Kerala forest department for incorporating it as part of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.

The Thirunelli-Kudrakote corridor connects the Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary (18,100 hectares) bordering Karnataka and Kerala, with the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (11,000 hectares) and the Wayanad north division (21,400 hectares) in Kerala. The stretch is part of a larger swathe of about 12,000 sq. km, with an elephant population of more than 6,300. This by itself constitutes one-third of India’s endangered Asian elephant population, which keeps moving up and down the corridor for food and social bonding.

Buying land back from the villagers has not only secured the corridor for the safe passage of elephants and other wild animals, but also helped reduce human-elephant conflict in the area.

“The people are able to harvest and are spared sleepless nights guarding their crop and houses from elephants,” said Sandeep Tiwari, deputy director, WTI. “The initiatives have also helped in improving the lives of these families as they now have access to education and healthcare centres and opening up employment opportunities.”

How much forest is cut down for development needs? The government’s 11th Plan (2007-12) was particularly severe in terms of loss of forest cover, according to a report by research and activist group Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Land was diverted for development projects with scant consideration for wildlife, water and rural communities, it said.

The CSE study looked at five key sectors—thermal power, hydropower, cement, iron and steel, and mining—that have impacted forests. The report said 8,284 projects were granted forest clearance and 197,907.61 hectares of forest land diverted between 2007 and 2011. In the past three decades, 815,534.48 hectares of forest have been cleared for 23,404 projects (see graphic).

India is urbanizing rapidly, and there is heavy pressure on land and natural resources as the population increases. According to a study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), the number of towns has grown from 5,161 to 7,935 in the decade ended 2011, and this may near 10,000 by 2030. Demographic projections show that by then, the proportion of people in urban areas may swell to more than double that in rural areas.

The loss of forest habitat is a reason for declining wildlife populations across the planet. In this scenario, buying land to secure wildlife habitats has given conservationists a method to arrest habitat loss. As renowned conservation biologist Richard Cowling said: “Conservation is 10% science and 90% negotiation.”

Acquiring land for conservation is not new. In the book Buying Nature, authors Sally K. Fairfax, Lauren Gwin, Mary Ann King, Leigh Raymond and Laura A. Watt document the process of land acquisition as a conservation strategy in the US in the last 200 years.
One such current initiative is the American Prairie Reserve, a collaborative effort involving conservation agencies such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the National Geographic Society that aims to acquire land in north-eastern Montana in the US to create a seamless protected area.

“Imagine a grassland reserve of three million acres—a wildlife spectacle that rivals the Serengeti and an awe-inspiring place for you and your children to explore,” says the American Prairie Reserve website.

“Imagine helping to build a national treasure.”

Eric Dinerstein, lead scientist and vice-president, conservation science, WWF, said: “By 2022, I dream of 10,000 bison thundering across 1,000,000 acres with wolves in hot pursuit.”

Back in India, between 2001 and 2003, WTI managed to secure the Kollegal or Edayarhalli–Doddasampige elephant corridor for about Rs.70 lakh. The elephant range to the east of the Biligirirangan Hills had been divided by a long strip of cultivation that cut off the Biligiriranga Swamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary from the forests of the Kollegal division. A narrow corridor now exists between the villages of Kurubaradoddi and Aandipalya along the Kollegal-Satyamangalam highway.

WTI acquired 25.4 acres for the corridor in Aandipalya village from 17 landowners. The land has been transferred to the Karnataka forest department through a formal memorandum of understanding (MoU) to maintain it as an elephant corridor, ensuring connectivity and incorporating it as part of the BRT Wildlife Sanctuary. This is the first ever privately bought corridor to be added to a protected areas in Asia.

In the North-East, with financial support from WLT, which pioneered the buy-an-acre concept of acquiring land for conservation, WTI is working with the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC), the Meghalaya state forest department and the local community to secure wildlife corridors and the restore wildlife habitat.

As much as “4,150 acres have been secured with notification of 10 Village Reserve Forests,” said WTI’s Tiwari.

WWF-India is keen to follow the model, but rocketing land prices are a stumbling block.
“We are looking across various landscapes to acquire land and hand it over to the forest department,” said Ravi Singh, WWF-India’s secretary general. “Whatever we are doing to get forest land back is being done discreetly as any overt signs may send the land prices spiralling.”

Land for Project Tiger

Project Tiger, the government’s flagship conservation programme that turns 40 years old this month, has secured 2% of the country’s geographical area as tiger reserves. The area under the project gets the highest legal protection under the Wildlife Act. The central government’s programme not only secures the existence of the tiger, but also a gamut of species that thrives in those areas.

Launched in April 1973 in nine reserves across an area of approximately 14,000 sq. km, the project has expanded, especially in the past decade, from 25 tiger reserves in 2001 to 43 now. Project Tiger has secured an area of 66,274.68 sq. km across 17 states in the country.

Under the project, the central government provides 100% monetary assistance to states for strengthening protection; creating basic infrastructure for management; habitat development and restoration; water resources; eco-development programmes; village relocation; use of information technology (IT) in crime detection; monitoring of tiger populations; and carrying out estimations of tigers, co-predators and prey animals among others.

Private forests

Apart from government and non-government initiatives, a few individuals too have acquired land adjoining wildlife sanctuaries across the country and then allowed natural forest regrowth to take place as part of conservation. Most of them refused to speak on record.

One of them is Romulus Whitaker, popularly known as the Snake Man of India for his specialization in reptiles.

Whitaker set up the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS) in Karnataka as a field station for the study of rainforest ecology in 2005 on a four-acre plot surrounded by forests. The land was bought with money willed to him by his mother, Doris Norden Chattopadhyaya.

Agumbe is a village in the Western Ghats in Shimoga where, in 1971, Whitaker spotted his first king cobra. He’d always wanted to set up a research base in the area.

In 2005, Whitaker also received the prestigious Whitley Fund for Nature award, which helped him set up basic infrastructure and convert an old farmhouse into a full-fledged forest research base.
“During the setting up of the field station, we had visits from leopards as well as a couple of king cobras, which to us ‘certified’ the place as the ideal field station,” he recalled.
Today, ARRS has 10 acres of land thanks to additional acquisitions and recently came under the administration of the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust, which Whitaker set up in the 1980s to study reptiles.

Wildernest, in the Chorla Ghat area of Goa, has secured 450 acres and is perhaps one of the largest private reserve corridors for forests across two sanctuaries as well as two states—between the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary in Goa and Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka. The Wildernest team runs two independent research stations like ARRS, one in the Chorla ghats and the other at Kuveshi near Castle Rock.

The Sai Sanctuary located in the Western Ghats is another example of a private forest reserve. It’s home to large carnivores such as tigers and leopards, along with elephants and 300 species of birds.

From the initial purchase of 55 acres of private forested lands in 1991, the reserve managed by the Sai Sanctuary Trust has grown to more than 300 acres and today offers a buffer to the National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries along its borders—Brahmagiri, Nagarhole and Bandipur.

Securing land, especially degraded forests and leaving them for nature to reclaim, is a sustainable model to restore forests and protect biodiversity. But it’s an uphill task with land costs surging the moment there’s a hint of demand. Also, in a burgeoning economy in which development is the buzzword, it can be a struggle to find the right balance between conservation and economic growth imperatives.

Source: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/df1ep278rRHJ7JaeI6ohrL/Buying-land-to-return-it-to-nature.html

Officials, civil society join hands to restore wildlife corridor

Subhash Chandra N S Bangalore | Deccan Herald

Govt declares Kaniyanapura and nearby villages as reserve forest. This is one classic example of how concerted efforts by government officials and civil society can make a difference to conservation. 

Sustained pursuance of the case by a few bureaucrats and wildlife activists has ensured that revenue land, over 5,000 acres, falling in a critical wildlife corridor at Kaniyanapura is declared a reserve forest. The efforts bring to an end the two-decade old issue of protecting the Kaniyanapura elephant corridor - which links Bandipur Tiger Reserve and Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu.

Kaushik Mukherjee, former additional chief secretary, B J Hosmath, field director, Project Tiger, Sanjay Gubbi, member, State Board for Wildlife, Basavaraju, assistant commissioner, Kollegal and Manjunath, tahsildar, Gundlupet have together got thousands of acres of revenue land, which had features of forest, declared reserve forest.

“A notification under Section 4 of Karnataka Forest Act has been issued with an intention to provide legal status to this forest patch,” Kumar Pushkar, Chief Conservator of Forests, Bandipur Tiger Reserve, told Deccan Herald. The notification - dated February 2, 2012 - grants reserve forest status to more than 5,000 acres of revenue land to ensure their protection.

Pushkar said the corridor was very important as far as wildlife protection is concerned as almost all animals, including tiger and elephant, use this stretch for their movement. He said declaring such a huge stretch of land as reserve forest was not an easy task. Not doing so would have been a great loss to wildlife as the notified area binds north and south ears of the corridor, he said.

“This area had become a hub of numerous activities. We would have lost the habitat. By declaring it reserve forest, we have secured it for wildlife,” he said.

“This is the patch which connects Biligirirangana Hills Tiger Reserve and Satyamangala forest with Nagarhole and Bandipur,” he added.

The revenue land falling in the limits of Chikyelchetti, Bachalli, Kebbepura, Kaniyanpura, Mangala, Yeriyur, Heggavadi and Kundukere villages have forests that connected the two important protected areas within the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.

“Despite a Supreme Court order that land with characteristics of forests should not be diverted for non-forestry activities without proper permissions, several resorts and private farms had come up here. Many of them were illegal and had reduced the corridor to a chicken neck in some locations,” explained a wildlife expert who has conducted a study of this corridor.

Sanjay Gubbi conducted a quick survey of the area with the help of volunteers from Vanya and Aranya wildlife groups in 2011. An area of 9,662.3 acres was found to have forest cover and a report was submitted to the government recommending that these areas be declared reserved forest.

Finding that an area of 5,599.05 acres was not diverted to private use, the department officials made a proposal to the government to declare it reserved forest under the Karnataka Forest Act, 1963. This finally led to the notification declaring the area as reserve forest.

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/257712/officials-civil-society-joi

Human settlements, a threat to Sathyamangalam tiger reserve

P. OPPILI

Unauthorised temples, new resorts disturbing the tranquillity

The presence of a large number of people in
core areas disrupts movement of animals

Unauthorised temples, new resorts and makeshift shops inside the core area are major threats the newly formed Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve is facing.

The State government announced the formation of the fourth tiger reserve in the State through a notification, issued on March 15 this year.

Members of the Tamil Nadu Green Movement pointed out that several unauthorised places of worship were found inside the tiger reserve. There are three main temples – Karuvannayan temple near Nandhipuram, Bannariamman temple Bannari and Madeswara temple in Kongalli. The three temples are under the control of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Board. Apart from them, several unauthorised temples are found inside the core area, say the members.

People visiting these temples camp there, even cook, and travel in large numbers into the core areas in trucks. Their movement creates a lot of disturbance to the wildlife. The State government must immediately relocate the unauthorised temples from the core areas, the members pointed out.

Another important issue is the springing up of new resorts in the core areas. S. Jayachandran of the Tamil Nadu Green Movement said Kongalli, Mavallam, Araiya Palayam and Hasanur are the places where the resorts are coming up. There were more than 200 resorts inside the STR.

Man-animal conflict

In the long run, it will lead to man-animal conflict, he said. The department officials have to immediately promulgate the ecologically sensitive zone to stop any more resorts in the core areas, he said.

Environmentalists also pointed out that during festival season, people set up shops, stay in the forests and defecate in the core tiger reserve area. Temporary shops have come up right on the elephant corridors located between Susilkuttail and Bannari. The Forest department authorities have to intervene and take action under the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, the activists said.

‘Make them partners’

Raman Sukumar, Professor and Chairman, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Sciences, who began his research on elephants in the early 1980s, said the tiger population had increased substantially in the Sathyamangalam area. A good number of settlements over a century old were in Hasanur, Talamalai, Geddasal, Chikkahalli, Neydalapuram and Kadambur, to name a few. People in these settlements co-existed with the tigers over time. These people should be made partners in the management of the tiger reserve.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/human-settlements-a-threat-to-sathyamangalam-tiger-reserve/article4560872.ece

Call of the wild

K A Shaji, TNN | Mar 12, 2013
COIMBATORE: IT'S a problem few Indian cities have to face and it's only likely to increase in the coming years. As the city grew in the last decade, residential colonies have sprouted in the close vicinity of the forests of the Western Ghats. These residential pockets are far too close to the jungles through which the traditional migratory paths of wild elephants that travel between the Silent Valley in Kerala and Sathyamangalam forests on the Eastern Ghats. Confused jumbos often stray into human habitations resulting in panic, widespread destruction of property and loss of lives.

Statistics with the forest department reveals that 81 people have been trampled to death by wild elephants since 2011 in the Coimbatore region. Colonies on the forest fringes including Kovaipudur, Madukarai, Thondamuthur, Ettimadai, Siruvani, Narsipuram, Boluvampatti, Maruthamalai, Vadavalli, Thudiyalur and Periyanaickenpalayam live in fear of elephant attacks. Unfortunately, these are the fringe areas of Coimbatore where many of new middle classes are headed to in search of homes as property prices skyrocket in the inner city areas.

Human-animal conflict is likely to be a major cause of worry for city fathers as Coimbatore expands in the next decade, according to urban planners and environmentalists. "Forest department is undertaking many steps including digging elephant proof trenches, creating fodder banks within the forests and establishing kumki camps to minimize the impact of elephant attacks. But they are unlikely to be effective in the wake of organised and systematic encroachment on forest lands by the super rich. Traditional migratory paths are getting blocked and habitats are getting disturbed. Regulating construction on forest areas ought to be the top priority to minimize elephant attacks,'' says K Mohanraj of Tamil Nadu Green Movement.

Illegal constructions are dime a dozen in the forest fringes in violation of laws. Environmentalists say this is because most of the activity has been sanctioned by politicians and bureaucrats. While small scale farmers who use torches and stones to scare elephants from their fields face flak for living in proximity to jungles, large scale violations by religious and social groups are ignored, they say. "The issue of construction in the traditional elephant migratory corridors must be addressed urgently as it is a major factor that contributes to human-elephant conflict in Coimbatore,'' says G Sivasubramanian, assistant manager, Western Ghats Landscape Programme under World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-India. Elephant habitat in Coimbatore region is under threat from these development activities. "The issues concerning forests and wildlife in Coimbatore region is unique because 70% of the forests here are in hill slopes. It is a narrow corridor that connects Sathyamangalam forest and the Silent Valley in the neighbouring Palakkad district, which is the traditional migratory path for elephants. Any disturbance leads to elephants venturing out of the forest,'' adds Sivasubramanian.

According to Mohanraj, over 30 high profile institutions including private universities, research centres, ashrams, schools and even a factory has come up in the region without the approval of the Hill Area Conservation Authority. All of them have been built on patta land right on elephants' migratory corridor. There are over 190 brick kilns in the active migratory corridor in the Thadagam valley.

Now, realtors too are active in the hills close to Coimbatore eying land to make a bargain out of the city's rapid expansion. Traditional farmers are selling off farmland. Big mansions and other buildings are coming up and the new entrants lack the skills to co-exist with wild elephants, green activists say. In Kovaipudur-Madukarai region, locals blame a huge housing complex under construction for disrupting the elephant migratory path and inviting the fury of elephants on locals.

The erratic monsoon and spread of invasive weeds have affected the food security of elephants within the forests. "Elephants behaviour has changed over the years as they are stressed out due to constant human interference in what was once their territory. These issues require not just forest department's efforts but other departments including agriculture, revenue, highways, electricity, mining and police should also pitch in to resolve the problem,'' argues Sivasubramanian.

Tribal rights activists and scholar C R Bijoy wants the forest department also under the scanner. He argues that "large-scale clearance of natural forests initially by forest department to plant silver oaks, eucalyptus, teak and acacia also contributed to the situation apart from invasion by weeds like parthenium and lantana". The ban by forest department on harvesting bamboo by tribals led to their natural death as those people had ensured regeneration in the past. Big estates have cleared forests and these all have led to the depletion of fodder for elephants. The forest department's use of tamarind, jaggery, salt etc to attract elephants for tourists and later by resorts also resulted in a situation where elephants raid houses in search of these, says Bijoy.

According to forest department, 58 villages on the outskirts of the city face threat from elephants. The issue requires long-term and short-term strategies. Hill and forest areas must be exempted from construction activities and efforts are needed to reinstate the migratory paths. Maximum disturbances to elephants must be avoided, say forest officials. Only a coordinated action involving different governmental agencies can ensure tough action against violators, officials argue.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/coimbatore/Call-of-the-wild/articleshow/18917197.cms

Greens seek active hill conservation authority

K A Shaji, TNN | Mar 12, 2013
COIMBATORE: Two weeks have gone since district collector M Karunagaran issued an order banning illegal constructions in villages notified under the Hill Area Conservation Authority (HACA). The order has had minimal impact. Meanwhile, Madras high court has sought affidavits from the forest department and the district administration in two weeks on a public interest litigation that sought all illegal constructions by a spiritual centre in Boluvampatti to be demolished. In the same time, green groups in the region have come out in open demanding immediate steps for the strengthening of the HACA which, according to them, can ease man-animal conflict in the region.

Tamil Nadu Green Movement president Dr V Jeevanandan and general secretary A Rangarajan said they written a letter to chief minister J Jayalalithaa requesting a total revamp of HCA. "Non-compliance of HACA regulations is triggering human-animal conflict in the region. District administration must act to preserve elephant paths and habitat in the Coimbatore region,'' says Jeevanandan.

According to activist Mohammed Saleem, Coimbatore forests come under Elephant Reserve No 8 notified by the ministry of environment and forests. This means, village lands abutting the elephant reserves are ecologically sensitive. "HACA and the district administration must not allow indiscriminate land use change, road building and other construction in these lands. PWD, TWAD board, highways and TANGEDCO must limit activities in HACA-notified villages,'' he says.

The collector's order on illegal constructions mentions villages including Devarayapuram, Kalikka Naykkan Palayam, Ikkarai Boluvampatti, Mathampatti, Theethipalayam, Thondamuthur, Perur Chettipalayam, Sundakkamuthur, Ettimadai, Alandurai, Madhavarayapuram, Vellimalaipattanam, Narasipuram, Pooluvampatti, Mavuthampatti, Velliyankadu, Thekkampatti, Odanthurai, Chinnathadagam, Veerapandi, Somayampalayam, Nellithurai, Sikkadasampalayam, Sirumugai, Periyapothu, Vettaikaranpudur, Kaliyapauram, Kottur, Angalakurichi, Thurayur, Jallipatti, Ardhanaripalayam and Aanamalai. According to Rangarajan, land use patterns have been violated in these villages and non-agricultural activities including setting up of industries, recreational firms, educational institutions and residential complexes are replacing agriculture. "HACA has failed in all respects," says Jeevanandam. "Government must stop all non-forestry activity in these villages and revise Coimbatore master plan giving prime consideration to ecology of the region,'' he adds.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/coimbatore/Greens-seek-active-hill-conservation-authority/articleshow/18917230.cms

Blood on the Tracks

Jay Mazoomdaaar | 9 February 2013
Hundreds of kilometres of railway tracks run through our wilderness. Every time elephants are run over, we question if the killer train broke the speed embargo of 40-50 kmph inside forests. At the same time, we also cheer Indian Railways as it aspires to run high-speed trains by 2020 that will clock 250-350 kmph.

Last week, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways met to discuss how to stop elephant deaths on railway tracks. Between 30 December and 13 January, 11 elephants were killed on railway tracks in three corners of India. Each site has long been designated an elephant zone, where locomotive drivers are supposed to follow real-time inputs from forest staff on elephant movements, watch out and go slow.

The stretch close to Berhampur in Odisha, where the Coromandel Express ran over six jumbos on 30 December, between two warning signs of elephant movement put up by the Railways itself, has seen many more wild animals killed in the past, including an elephant last May. The tracks between north Bengal’s Alipurduar and Siliguri, which claimed three jumbos inside Buxa tiger reserve this month, was responsible for three dozen elephant deaths in the last decade. The third accident took place between Haridwar and Dehradun, where a high-profile protocol to avoid elephant deaths on tracks tripped after 12 years.

What matched these deaths in their unpredictability was the official blame game that followed. In Odisha, the Railways claimed that the input on elephant movement had reached it too late. In Bengal, it said the locomotive driver was well within rights to go at 100 kmph in the dark because it was still half an hour to 7 pm when speed restrictions come into force. At Haridwar, where a speeding Shatabdi hit the herd under a clear morning sky, it was blamed on the sudden emergence of the animals on the track. The Odisha forest authorities complained that the trains were not following speed restrictions along vulnerable elephant zones across four districts. In Bengal, the department increased the length of the go-slow zone along the 163 km stretch between Alipurduar and Siliguri from 17.4 km to 97 km. It also woke up to the fact that the 7 pm-5 am low-speed window did not cover the extended dark hours during winter and imposed a sunset-sunrise schedule.

In March 2010, the environment ministry had issued an advisory to the Railways to avoid elephant deaths. Six months on, when seven elephants were run over in north Bengal, then Environment minister Jairam Ramesh talked tough, waving that advisory. Last week, his successor Jayanthi Natarajan circulated the same advisory yet again. She also spoke of updating “the list of well-known vulnerable patches for wildlife”, posting forest staff at Railway control rooms in sensitive areas and regular meetings between the ministries.

Then, to throw in some novelty, the minister announced “a pilot scheme to electronically tag all elephants particularly in high-traffic areas” to ensure railway officials were warned “well in time”. Satellite collars can send real-time data on herd locations at quick intervals. But is it feasible or even desirable to collar hundreds of elephants? Forget the high density landscapes of Odisha and Uttarakhand, Buxa in north Bengal alone has more than 200 elephants. Other vulnerable forests in that region—Jaldapara, Gorumara, Chapramari and Mahananda—have many more.

+++
Though elephant deaths are the most visible, thousands of wild animals die on railway tracks and highways that cut through forested areas every year. These accidents also risk passenger safety. The night six jumbos were mowed down near Berhampur last month, one person died on board from the impact of the collision. So far, the Railways have been lucky to avoid major passenger casualties. But collisions with elephants almost invariably damage and derail locomotives, lead to temporary suspensions of service, and cost the exchequer in crores every year. Yet, none of our remedies, such as tagging all animals or imposing blanket speed limits or banning night traffic, is practical.

Rail and road traffic must move fast to be efficient. Speed restrictions are feasible only when imposed along a short stretch, such as the 11 km killer track near Berhampore in Odisha or the 8 km stretch that cuts through Jharkhand’s Palamu or the 4 km death trap in the Palghat Gap that connects Kerala’s Palakkad and Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore on both sides of the Western Ghats. But what is the point of restricting speed along nearly 100 km between Alipurduar and Siliguri when there is a less vulnerable alignment available through Fala- kata in north Bengal?

Of the 88 identified elephant corridors in India, 40 have national highways running through them, 21 have railway tracks and 18 have both. Not only these corridors, roads and railways cut through hundreds of kilometres of elephant and other wildlife habitat. It makes no economic sense to impose speed restrictions on such lengths of the network. Worse, accidents can never be ruled out even at low speeds due to a number of factors, including human error.

“If there is traffic, some loss will always happen. But limiting speed over long distances is not a realistic long-term solution. If we are serious about minimising damage, we have to take radical measures acceptable to all stakeholders and not only conservationists,” says Ajay Desai, co-chairman of the Elephant Task Force (ETF), set up by the MoEF in 2010. Vivek Menon, executive director of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and a member of the ETF, points out that speed restrictions are anyway not an option on steep gradients, such as Assam’s Karbi Anglong, where trains must run fast to climb the slope. The best way to ensure both efficiency and safety, agree Desai and Menon, is to realign where possible road/ rail corridors that cut through critical forests.

But some alignments must still cut through forests. For example, if Dehra- dun has to be connected, the tracks must pass through Rajaji national park. But even there, speed is not the only killing factor. A team of WTI researchers studied accidents in Rajaji and found that most elephants were run over by trains at spots where either the locomotive was coming round a bend or the track was flanked by sharp slopes.

Interventions based on this knowledge and reduced speed ensured that no elephants were killed on this track for 12 years till the system tripped last week. Insiders blame it on the complacency of both the ground patrol team and the drivers. More than a decade ago, the Railways had sought to fence off the most vulnerable stretch of this track and experts cleared the proposal since it did not significantly hamper herd movement. The fence, however, is still not in place. Desai says monitoring herds and alerting drivers of their presence cannot be a fool-proof method in difficult terrain. Menon prescribes site-specific solutions that are practical and scientific. But when it comes to the Railways or highway authorities, the stock solution is to provide low-cost overpasses or underpasses, which are no more spacious than drainage or service ducts.

A few years ago, the Supreme Court sought the view of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) on the viability of building two elephant overpasses on a national highway that cut through Rajaji national park. Asked if elephants would use those overpasses, the WII chief said: “Ask the elephants!”

The SC rejected the overpass plan. Instead, a 0.9 km elevated stretch of highway between Motichur and Doiwala is being built at a cost of Rs 100 crore. There is a similar demand in north Bengal to build elevated tracks over the most vulnerable stretches. But the authorities insist on cheaper solutions.

All over Europe, Canada and the US, hundreds of artificial passages help reduce animal road kill. But most of these are used by amphibians, invertebrates, badgers, ungulates and other small mammals. Among the largest animals to benefit from such artificial access are mountain goat (Montana), mule deer, elk, moose (Nugget Canyon), the bighorn sheep (Colorado) and the panther (Florida). But there is no record yet of elephants using an overpass.

Sensitive to vibrations caused by the traffic below, elephants are unlikely to use an overpass even if it is built by joining two hillocks in a way that the natural alignment appears intact. They also avoid narrow tunnel-like underpasses. Funnelling the animals towards the underpass is also critical because herds stick to their traditional routes. The first instance of elephants taking an underpass was recorded in South Africa’s Kwazulu Natal province. Then, Kenya built a six-metre long underpass, linking Mount Kenya National Park and Nagre Ndare Forest Reserve, which is being used by herds since last year. At home, solitary bulls occasionally used the Dogudda aqueduct to cross the Chilla-Rishikesh highway but matriarchal herds stayed away. Then, towards the end of 2010, we had the first evidence in India that underpasses, when built properly, do allow regular herd movement.

About 35 km of NH 152 that connects Assam’s Pathsala to Bhutan’s Nganglam cuts through the buffer zone of Manas national park. Anwaruddin Choudhury, then deputy commissioner of Buxa district, insisted on realigning the original road that ran through the core of the national park and constructing two underpasses.

“For once, both the state and central authorities were receptive to the idea. Knowing that budgetary constraints will inevitably scale things down, I asked for 100 metre long and 50 feet high underpasses because elephants rarely squeeze through narrow gaps,” recalls Choud- hury. When the highway was ready in 2010, it offered two 30 feet high and 100 feet wide passageways, which elephant herds started using within months.

The other solution, as has been recommended for the highway cutting through the Kaziranga landscape, is to take the road underground. Technologies such as elephant sensors that trigger automatic braking have the potential of making railway tracks safer for animals. In many areas, says Desai, it is possible to simply funnel elephants with fencing to designated level-crossing zones where they, particularly calves, will not struggle to climb up or down the tracks. It is important, though, to use barriers across the tracks at such crossings so that jumbos do not get trapped by entering segments flanked by fences.

With the Railways planning to expand in the red corridor, new tracks will be laid across vast tracts of elephant forest in central India. The highway authorities have been pushing for clearances to expand roads through some of India’s best wilderness. “We have to prioritise because we cannot overnight realign all forest routes across India. But we must consider the speed and safety issues while planning these new projects,” warns Menon.

Be it realignments, flyovers, tunnels or spacious animal passageways, the infrastructure solutions will require additional investment. But India cannot shy away if it wants to protect the interests of both its economy and its wildlife. Otherwise, we can keep ignoring the loss of thousands of train hours and console ourselves that angry villagers in Buxa protested on the track for three hours, that the meat of dead elephants was sent to feed vultures at a local breeding centre, and that nearly two dozen people joined a candlelight vigil at Alipurduar.

Source: http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/blood-on-the-tracks

Elephants destroy crops

A herd of five elephants destroyed banana crops and arecanut trees on farms on the Mettuppalayam – Vanabadrakaliamman temple road in the last two days.

The herd had entered the same area about 20 days ago, people said.

Though four of them went back to forest, one got separated. The single elephant had killed an aged woman last month in the same area. After re-uniting, the herd crossed river Bhavani and strayed into various farms in the area. The herd in the last two-days destroyed crops ripe for yield in a few banana farms and even uprooted areca nut trees.

The Forest Department is on the job of deploying anti-depredation watchers to monitoring its movement and drive it deep into the forests, Farmers have demanded that a permanent solution be found to end the menace.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/elephants-destroy-crops/article4396131.ece

Forest Department measures to protect elephant corridors

M. SOUNDARIYA PREETHA
In the wake of rapid development in areas near the reserve forests in the district and increasing elephant movement into villages, the Forest Department has taken a series of measures recently to ensure that new constructions do not come up in the elephant corridors or affect elephant movement in the forest area.

The department has intimated the appropriate authorities on constructions coming up without its permission in the Hill Area Conservation Act (HACA) notified villages or buildings that are promoted on the agricultural land in the areas close to the forest without getting a “no objection certificate” from the department.

Village panchayats

It has also told nearly 20 village panchayats (in the HACA notified area) that are seeing several new buildings coming up that the structures need no objection certificate from the department.

The unauthorised constructions should not be given power or water supply. This will act as a deterrent, says District Forest Officer V. Thirunavukarasu.

The department has also suggested to the District Local Planning Authority (LPA) that the land classification should not be changed in the sensitive villages identified by it near the forest.

Further, the Forest Department has recently asked the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) to gets its concurrence before installing street lights in the tribal hamlets in the forest area. This is to ensure safety of the people there and that elephant movement is not affected.

Mr. Thirunavukarasu The Hindu on Friday that as many as 22 tribal hamlets in Karamadai range did not have electricity supply till about five years ago.

When the Tangedco started the process of providing electricity to all hamlets, the supply was given only to the households.

Streetlights

However, when streetlights were provided under the Tamil Nadu Habitations Improvement Scheme, several lights had come up.

“There is no ban on erection of streetlights. However, we want to permit it after evaluating the local conditions before the electricity poles are erected,” he said. The lights could be permitted based on the local conditions.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/forest-department-measures-to-protect-elephant-corridors/article4380826.ece

Officials, civil society join hands to restore wildlife corridor

Subhash Chandra N S Bangalore

Govt declares Kaniyanapura and nearby villages as reserve forest

This is one classic example of how concerted efforts by government officials and civil society can make a difference to conservation. 

Sustained pursuance of the case by a few bureaucrats and wildlife activists has ensured that revenue land, over 5,000 acres, falling in a critical wildlife corridor at Kaniyanapura is declared a reserve forest. The efforts bring to an end the two-decade old issue of protecting the Kaniyanapura elephant corridor - which links Bandipur Tiger Reserve and Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu.

Kaushik Mukherjee, former additional chief secretary, B J Hosmath, field director, Project Tiger, Sanjay Gubbi, member, State Board for Wildlife, Basavaraju, assistant commissioner, Kollegal and Manjunath, tahsildar, Gundlupet have together got thousands of acres of revenue land, which had features of forest, declared reserve forest.

“A notification under Section 4 of Karnataka Forest Act has been issued with an intention to provide legal status to this forest patch,” Kumar Pushkar, Chief Conservator of Forests, Bandipur Tiger Reserve, told Deccan Herald. The notification - dated February 2, 2012 - grants reserve forest status to more than 5,000 acres of revenue land to ensure their protection.

Pushkar said the corridor was very important as far as wildlife protection is concerned as almost all animals, including tiger and elephant, use this stretch for their movement. He said declaring such a huge stretch of land as reserve forest was not an easy task. Not doing so would have been a great loss to wildlife as the notified area binds north and south ears of the corridor, he said.

“This area had become a hub of numerous activities. We would have lost the habitat. By declaring it reserve forest, we have secured it for wildlife,” he said.
“This is the patch which connects Biligirirangana Hills Tiger Reserve and Satyamangala forest with Nagarhole and Bandipur,” he added.

The revenue land falling in the limits of Chikyelchetti, Bachalli, Kebbepura, Kaniyanpura, Mangala, Yeriyur, Heggavadi and Kundukere villages have forests that connected the two important protected areas within the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.

“Despite a Supreme Court order that land with characteristics of forests should not be diverted for non-forestry activities without proper permissions, several resorts and private farms had come up here. Many of them were illegal and had reduced the corridor to a chicken neck in some locations,” explained a wildlife expert who has conducted a study of this corridor.

Sanjay Gubbi conducted a quick survey of the area with the help of volunteers from Vanya and Aranya wildlife groups in 2011. An area of 9,662.3 acres was found to have forest cover and a report was submitted to the government recommending that these areas be declared reserved forest.

Finding that an area of 5,599.05 acres was not diverted to private use, the department officials made a proposal to the government to declare it reserved forest under the Karnataka Forest Act, 1963. This finally led to the notification declaring the area as reserve forest.

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/257712/officials-civil-society-joi

Realty near reserve forests to come under scanner

The Forest Department, which is struggling to mitigate the increasing human–animal conflict situation, is now worried over the proposal for future constructions closer to the reserve forest boundary.

Coimbatore Forest Division with an area of 690 sq km is found to be having conflicts in 400 sq km spread over 58 border villages and 315 km of forest boundary. Division comprises of Booluvampatti, Coimbatore, Periyanaickenpalayam, Mettuppalayam, Karamadai and Sirumugai. Of this Booluvampatti, Coimbatore, Periyanaickenpalayam and Mettuppalayam are proving to be high conflict prone.

The Forest Department has now embarked on an exercise of issuing notice to builders who intend to have compound walls for their gated communities constructed near reserve forest boundary. One such example was a proposed construction with a compound wall at the foothills of Marudhamalai, which was already witnessing frequent conflict situations. The Department has slapped a notice asking the promoter not to plan for a compound wall as it would only infuriate the elephants and cause further loss and damage.

The Department is also writing letters to all the local bodies and officials of the Tangedco requesting them not to issue building plan approvals, water supply and power supply connections for constructions that are planned very closer to the reserve boundary with not even an elbow space of buffer zone.

Scrutiny

In cases where permissions had been granted, the promoters are being asked to bring their approved plans for a scrutiny to evolve measures to ease or eliminate an impending conflict situation. The promoters are being asked to stop further construction activities.

As such as there are more number of buildings along the migratory corridor and closer to the reserve forest boundary disturbing the pachyderm population and if the upcoming buildings were also to be permitted, the rate of human – animal conflict will go manifold, the forest officials said.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/realty-near-reserve-forests-to-come-under-scanner/article4303656.ece

Radio collars for elephants in forests along rail tracks

Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava
Environment ministry wants to tag jumbos to track their movements and avert rail accidents

In the wake of the recent deaths of elephants on rail tracks in Odisha, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has decided to put radio collars on elephants that are found roaming near rail tracks. The pilot scheme will be started by radio collaring the surviving elephants of the herd that lost five of its members on January 6 after being hit by a moving train.

The elephant herd was traversing in its own corridor when five of its members , including a calf, were mowed down by a speeding Howrah-Chennai Coromandel Express near Rambha railway station in Ganjam district of Odisha. The fatal accident was attributed to lack of coordination between forest department of Odisha and the East Coast Railway.

Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan called a meeting of forest and railway officials on January 8 to take measures to prevent such accidents. Among several directions she gave to the officials, one was to electronically tag the elephants that use forest patches near railway tracks. “There were reportedly around 20 elephants in the herd that met with the accident. We are planning to electronically tag the remaining 15-16 elephants of the same herd with the help of Wildlife Institute of India and IIT-Delhi.

If the pilot project is successful, then wildlife and forest personnel will be able to keep track of the elephant movements, and warn railway officials well in time to enable them to avoid accident,” said S S Garbyal, director general of forests (wildlife) in MoEF. Often, the time lag between spotting of the elephant, and the information reaching the driver of the train is too little to enable effective action to prevent accidents.

Who will tame speeding trains?

Biswajit Mohanty of non-profit wildlife society of Orissa, however, said the real problem is the speed of the train which has not been addressed yet effectively. “It's difficult to radio collar each and every elephant that may come near the track. What if a new elephant crosses the track other than the ones which are radio-collared. For long, railways officials have been reluctant to slow down the speed of trains which causes the accidents. The patches where wildlife is found near the tracks are just two to three kilometre long. It will not affect the journey time of the trains much,” he added.

It has been reported that the train that mowed down the elephants in Odisha was moving at a speed of nearly 100 km per hour. The impact of the collision was so severe that a mature foetus was pushed out of the womb of a female elephant. This despite the fact that the Indian Railways itself has put up at least 10 display boards, indicating it as elephant corridor.

The minister, in the meeting, pressed upon the railway officials that they should follow the advisory issued by the ministry for the movement of trains in the vulnerable patches where wildlife is found crossing the tracks, which includes slowing down of trains in all such patches. The railway officials, however, emphasized this could be done only for very small stretches, as generally slowing down of trains would be very unviable, both in terms of traffic management and economic implications.

Mammoth problem for farmers in Sathyamangalam forests

S. RAMESH

A farmer showing banana crop damaged by elephants at Kunderipallam

The human-elephant conflict in Sathyamangalam forests has reached an alarming proportion with the jumbos killing three persons in the last two weeks.

A farmer guarding the crops in his field at Iruttipalayam village was the latest victim of the conflict. The farmer, Rangasamy (40), saw three elephants raiding the crops and attempted to chase them back into the forest with the help of two of his neighbours. But the elephants did not move. Instead, they attacked the farmer and crushed him to death.

On January 3, Chen Nanja (55), a resident of Neithalpuram village near Kadambur, was looking after his cattle grazing near the forests when an elephant attacked him. He suffered serious injuries and died in a hospital in Coimbatore.

A woman resident of Vinoba Nagar, who was returning home from a fair price shop, was killed by an elephant on December 31.

Fear grips the villages close to the forests after these incidents. “We are spending sleepless nights as herds of elephants continue to raid the crops in the fields, causing severe damage, and killing those who stand in their way,” said N. Nanjappan, a farmer in Kunderipallam area. A few days ago, a herd of elephants entered his field and damaged the banana crop.

Farmers in Bhavanisagar, Kadambur, Punjai Puliyampatti, Thalavadi and Thalamalai areas are the worst affected due to frequent intrusions.

Many farmers, who earlier used to guard the crops at night, now avoid doing so. In many places, residents have to be indoors as early as 6 p.m. to avoid being seen by the jumbos.

Shortage of water in the forest and the easy availability of fodder in the forest fringes are the primary reasons that make elephants stray from forest areas. “The poor rainfall has left many water sources in the forests dry and the elephants are coming out in large numbers in search of water and food. Once the elephants come out of their habitat and get used to the food crops, it becomes a habit for them. Farmers grow sugarcane, banana and other crops that attract the elephants and this leads to an increase in the conflict,” a senior forests official points out.

“An adult elephant needs at least 200 to 250 kg of food and 100 to 150 litres of water. Elephants stray out as there is less fodder and water inside the forests,” says Assistant Professor of wildlife biology B. Ramakrishnan.

The measures taken by the Forest department, including elephant proof trenches, did not produce expected results. The solar-powered fencing showed a positive result. “But not all the farmers have installed solar-powered fence,” another forest official said. Wildlife activists said the effective way to minimise the conflict was to remove encroachments on the elephant corridors and change the crop pattern on the forest fringes.

“The communities should be sensitised to the increasing conflict and they should be asked not to cultivate food crops in their fields abutting forests. Without their cooperation, we cannot produce a sustainable solution to the conflict,” says Mr. Ramakrishnan.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/mammoth-problem-for-farmers-in-sathyamangalam-forests/article4285285.ece

Now, a bison mowed down by train

SHIV SAHAY SINGH

• State and Railways have given conflicting versions of elephant deaths
• Incident occurred at spot where there are no speed restrictions on trains: Minister

Train was running 15 km/hour over speed limit, inquiry launched into incident

Hours after three elephants were mowed down by an express train in the Buxa Tiger Reserve of West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, a bison died after being hit by another train in the same district late on Saturday.

Sumita Ghatak, Divisional Forest Officer, Jalpaiguri, told The Hindu over telephone on Sunday: “The incident occurred in the Odlajhora forest when the Howrah-bound Kanchan Kanya Express hit the animal [when it] was crossing the tracks.”

Meanwhile, the State government and the Railways have given conflicting versions about the death of three elephants.

While the State’s Forest Minister, Hiten Burman, said the train was running at a speed of 70-75 km/hour — as against the permissible limit of 50 km per hour — Minister of State for Railways Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the incident occurred at a place where there are no speed restrictions on trains.

“We have ordered an inquiry into the incident. The report will be placed before Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who will take the matter up with the Railway authorities,” Mr. Burman said.

A meeting of the officials of the Forest and Railway departments will be held on Monday in Alipurduar in the district to discuss the situation and prevent any recurrence, he said.

Mr. Chowdhury said he had directed the officials of the Railway Board to find out whether there were any lapses on the part of Railways officials.

“Ideally, there should be no trains plying through these areas because of the elephant corridor, but if we [adhere to] that then we will loose our connectivity with large areas in north Bengal and the northeastern States,” he said.

Such incidents in north Bengal have shot up since the railway line passing through the region was converted from meter-gauge to broad-gauge in 2004. Since then, more than 30 elephants have been killed while crossing the tracks in the area. Seven elephants were killed in September 2011 after being hit by goods trains in the Banarhat area of the district.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/now-a-bison-mowed-down-by-train/article4281310.ece

3 elephants fatally hit on the track, calf critical

Three elephants were killed and two, including a calf, were critically injured when the Jhajhar Express hit them in West Bengal’s Alipurduar area on Saturday evening.

Field Director of the Buxa Tiger Reserve R.P. Saini said the accident occurred near Rajabhatkhaoa at 6.45 p.m.

Speed violation?

Chief Wildlife Warden S.B. Mandal said thick fog had reduced visibility, but the train, running between Guwahati and Ranchi, violated the stipulated speed limit of 50 kmph set for the elephant corridor.

Minister of State for Railways Adhir Roy Chowdhury said if that charge was proved, action would be taken against the railway personnel.

Mr. Mandal said a team of veterinary doctors treated the injured elephants.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/3-elephants-fatally-hit-on-the-track-calf-critical/article4278429.ece

Khurshid sojourn in jumbo corridor resort irks greens

B. RAVICHANDRAN | DC

Ooty: It looks like the dawn of 2013 may not have been on a happy note for Union external affairs minister Salman Khurshid with greens here venting their anger against him for choosing to stay in a private tourist resort said to be declared illegal and directed to be closed down by the Madras high court as it is located in the elephant corridor.

K. Mohan Raj, coordinator of the Tamil Nadu Green Movement (TNGM), said that Khurshid, on a visit to the Nilgiris since Monday, had stayed in a private tourist resort in Bokkapuram, adjoining the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), though the state government had allotted a VIP guesthouse at Mudumalai Tiger Reserve for him, as a protocol.

But the minister chose to stay in the tourist resort which has been declared illegal and directed to be shut by the high court.

His relatives reportedly own tourist resorts in Sigur plateau in the Nilgiris, which has been notified as elephant corridor based on the orders of the Madras high court. The matter is pending now before the Supreme Court, he added.

“We find this to be an unfortunate development and extremely discouraging to see the Union minister patronising a disputed resort at a controversial location. These resorts dismember a vital corridor that connects Eastern and Western Ghats’ elephant population. Had the minister opted to stay in the MTR guesthouse, he would have sent a right and encouraging signal,” he added.

Officials at Mudumalai Tiger Reserve were tight-lipped and only said the minister visited the jungles on Monday afternoon and left for Bokkapuram. However, police sources said the minister was scheduled to stay in the jungle guesthouse in the Upper Kargudi area in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve but chose to move to the Bokkapuram private resort.

The minister would leave the Nilgiris on Wednesday, the police said.

Source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130102/news-current-affairs/article/khurshid-sojourn-jumbo-corridor-resort-irks-greens

Salman Khurshid's Nilgiris stay irks activists

By Express News Service - COIMBATORE

Tamil Nadu Green Movement flays Salman Khurshid for staying in a resort at Bokkapuram declared illegal by HC. Express

The representatives of the Tamil Nadu Green Movement (TNGM) raised strong opposition against the stay of the Union Minister of External Affairs Salman Khurshid at a private resort in Bokkapuram.

According to the movement’s authorities, the Madras High Court had declared the resort illegal and had ordered it to be vacated.

In a statement, K Mohan Raj, coordinator of TNGM, said, “According to privileged information, Salman Khurshid had visited the Nilgiris and planned to stay in a private resort in Bokkapuram. This is when the state government has allotted a VIP guest house in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve as a protocol to the Minister. The Minister visited his relatives a few days ago and stayed in the resort that is declared illegal by the High Court of Madras and a clear mandate has been issued to vacate the resort. In this light, we find this move to be an unfortunate development and extremely discouraging to see the Minister patronising a disputed resort on a controversial location.”

Further, the TNGM has also alleged that the Minister’s relatives owned resorts in the elephant corridor in Sigur Plateau. “The area where the resort is situated has been notified as Elephant Corridor based on the orders of High Court of Madras and the matter is pending now before the Supreme Court. These resorts are dismembering a vital corridor that connects the elep hant population in Eastern and Western Ghats. If the Minister had opted to stay in Mudumulai Tiger Reserve guest house, he would have sent the right and encouraging signal,” Mohan Raj added.


Source: http://newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/article1404051.ece

Elephants trample brick kiln worker

STAFF REPORTER
Elephants trampled upon to death a brick kiln worker near Periya Thadagam on Sunday night. According to the Thudiyalur police, the incident happened around 9 p.m. when the worker Palanisamy came out of his house. He was a native of Amaravathi Dam area.

The police took his body to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital for postmortem.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/elephants-trample-brick-kiln-worker/article4257649.ece

Almost every evening people from nearby brick kilns and animal enthusiasts mob play hide and seek with the elephants causing enormous stress to the elephants. This incident has happened as expected. Police presence and their action to control these mobs has to be there. District administration and Local Panchayat are only busy in aiding soil mining brick kiln mafias in this elephant corridor and habitat.

Coimbatore Forest department having fewer resources at their disposal are being stretched to the maximum and their financial resources that were spent for electric fences are not working, trenches dug are poorly done. Forest Ranger in this area is always busy in non-forestry activities.

So.. Blame it on the elephants continues.
- Mac Mohan

Five elephants run over by speeding train in Ganjam

SIB KUMAR DAS

Five wild elephants — including a calf — were crushed to death by the speeding Chennai-bound Coromondel Express in Ganjam district shortly after midnight on Saturday night.

The body of Ranjit Jena (24), an attendant of an AC coach, was also found near the track. He had suffered a head injury. It is suspected he might have fallen out of the train when it collided with the herd, in a zone of wild elephant movement, near the Subalia level crossing in the Berhampur forest division. There are 10 signboards, marked ‘elephant crossing zone,’ put up between the Rambha and Huma stations.

Accident despite alert

East Coast Railway chief public relations officer R.N. Mohapatra said the Forest department had alerted the railway control room at Khurda Road at 0043 hours on Sunday about the possible crossing of a herd. Ironically, the accident occurred at the same time.

According to Divisional Forest Officer S.S. Mishra, a male elephant aged over 25, a four-year-old calf, two females aged 30-40 and a pregnant elephant of around 45 years were killed. Its mature foetus elephant was found thrown at a distance.

Bijay Kumar Hota, forest range officer of Khallikote, surmised that the superfast train from Howrah was running at 115-120 kmph, considering that pieces of carcasses were found lying over a distance of half kilometre.

Track, engine damaged

The ‘Up’ track, on which the train was running, and the engine also suffered damage. Around 10 sleepers cracked. The rails fractured at over 15 places and panel clips were either damaged or thrown away in the impact. The train was stopped at the spot.

An accident relief train from Khurda Road reached the spot around 3.30 a.m. Traffic on this stretch was maintained on the ‘Down’ line till 10 a.m. According to the DFO, the slain elephants were part of a herd of 20 from the Khallikote forest range, which had crossed over to the Chilika wildlife division 45 days ago. On December 27, eleven elephants retuned to the Khallikote range.

In an earlier accident in the same area, between Rambha and Huma, a mature female elephant was run over and killed by a goods train on the night of May 17.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/five-elephants-run-over-by-speeding-train-in-ganjam/article4257439.ece">

Green movement demand action against MTR resorts

TNN Dec 27, 2012, 04.08AM IST

COIMBATORE: Tamil Nadu Green Movement has expressed extreme anxiety over the way in which tourism resorts near Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) in the Nilgiris are celebrating Christmas and New Year scaring away wild animals and demanded meaningful efforts from forest department to prevent the tourism operators from doing so.

In a statement here, its coordinator K Mohanraj said the movement is convinced that the survival interests of wildlife in MTR and adjoining Nilgiris north forest division are under a great danger from the unregulated tourism activities. The elephants migrating through their traditional routes and other wildlife present nearby are the ones that suffer from these anthropocentric pressures, he said.

"We all know that resorts at Masinagudi, Bokkapuram and Mavanahalla are situated in the Sigur elephant corridor obstructing the traditional migratory routes of elephants. We found during Christmas night, resorts in the corridor were bursting firecrackers and playing music loudly with scant regard for the wildlife in the region. This is a violation of Madras High court order on elephant corridor because movement of the wild animals and birds are affected. They have also violated the Supreme Court order by bursting crackers well past 10.00pm," he alleged.

Those violating resort owners can be booked under Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 for causing disturbance to wildlife, the statement said.

"We fear that firing of crackers will enable the poachers and anti-social elements to enter the forests and shoot the wildlife. We request the government to take action on the resorts and stop this disturbance to wildlife in elephant corridor. Tamil Nadu Green Movement condemns the irresponsible resorts owners for their tourism activities that disturb the peace and tranquility of forests nearby," the statement said.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/coimbatore/Green-movement-demand-action-against-MTR-resorts/articleshow/17775767.cms