FEATURE - Villagers, elephants fight for right to life in India

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Link: http://news./s/nm/20070110/india_nm/india282921_5

 

FEATURE - Villagers, elephants fight for right to life in India

 

By Bappa Majumdar Wed Jan 10, 3:20 AM ET

 

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - When a herd of wild elephants rampaged

through a school kitchen in West Bengal, gobbling up rice and lentils,

seven-year-old Suman Bera and classmates were left without lunch --

and lessons.

 

The animals left a trail of destruction in their search for food,

forcing officials to cancel classes.

 

As forest habitat is felled by a growing population in need of more

land for homes and farms, India's remaining elephant population and

its people are coming into conflict, causing a jumbo-sized headache

for rural officials and wildlife activists.

 

" It's a matter of survival for both man and animal, " said Animesh

Bose, head of the West Bengal-based Himalayan Nature and Adventure

Foundation.

 

" Elephants are migratory animals and move from one forest to the other

through corridors which have often been lost due to villages that have

sprung up in the last few decades, " Bose said.

 

Home to 50,000 wild Asian elephants a century ago, just 26,400

elephants were roaming India's national parks and forests in 2002.

Worse, the first comprehensive elephant census published in 2005

showed a steep drop in numbers to just 21,300 elephants.

 

Late last year, the environment ministry's Forest Survey of India

reported a steady depletion of forest land in 11 major wildlife

reserves since 1997.

 

According to the survey, only 20 percent of India's landmass is

forested and just 120,000 sq km -- less than four percent of the

country -- of that is suitable for elephants.

 

Officials have set a target of 33 percent forest cover by 2012 through

extensive reforestation programmes, but wildlife activists have

derided the plans as almost impossible to achieve.

 

" With rampant habitat destruction the herd is now fragmented and

groups are becoming smaller in size ... as a result they are not

breeding as we hoped they would, which is a major worry, " said Shakti

Ranjan Banerjee, West Bengal secretary of WWF-India.

 

Most of India's elephants live in protected reserves in fourteen

states from north to south but even these are under pressure from

human encroachment and infrastructure development.

 

The Centre for Science and Environment, a New Delhi-based pressure

group, says in 2006 three million people were living in protected

areas, including sanctuaries, parks and reserves.

 

India has 2.4 percent of the world's land but supports nearly 16

percent of the earth's people. Its population grew by over 20 percent

between 1991 and 2001, and now tops one billion people.

 

ELEPHANTS KILLED BY TRAINS

 

For centuries, elephants have been chased and shot by hunters and

poachers in search of trophies or precious ivory, but of late more

prosaic deaths have awaited them: mowed down by speeding trains or

electrocuted by fences put round villages and crops.

 

Trains travelling along a single 160 km-long track stretching from the

West Bengal town of Siliguri to the border with Bhutan, built in 2003,

killed five elephants last year.

 

" The railway track has bisected the entire elephant corridor and cuts

through four sanctuaries, " said Sheelwant Patel, a top forest

department official.

 

Wildlife officials say elephants are faring a little better in

southern states like Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. But even here

numbers have fallen -- from 12,750 in 2002 to 12,036 three years later.

 

Activists fear the decline may be more rapid than official figures

suggest, just as authorities were shown last year to have routinely

overestimated India's population of threatened tigers.

 

" Despite government efforts, elephant conservation has not been given

serious thought, " said the WWF's Banerjee. " The largest habitat of the

Asian elephant in India will vanish in another 10-15 years it seems. "

 

Wildlife activists have complained the fragile ecosystem will be under

even greater pressure following recent legislation giving land

ownership and resource use rights to millions of poor forest dwellers.

 

But officials are optimistic they can boost the elephant population,

despite scepticism by conservationists.

 

" We don't expect results overnight, " said Manindra Biswas, a senior

forest department official in West Bengal. " But the positive effects

will surely be felt in the near future as we are trying to mitigate

animal-man conflict and habitat loss. "

 

FOREST BANDIT

 

Poaching has gone down since the international ban on ivory trade in

1990, but the secret trade still flourishes in southern and northern

India, wildlife activists say.

 

An infamous forest bandit, Koose Muniswamy Veerappan, shot dead by

police in 2004, was widely thought to have slaughtered hundreds of

elephants in southern India as he amassed a fortune from a jungle

empire built on ivory and sandalwood smuggling.

 

To turn around the elephants' fortunes, officials have come up with

some novel ideas.

 

In the tiger reserve of Buxa in West Bengal, special rope fences

coated with a stinking paste of chilli powder and motor oil are being

used to ward elephants off land used for cultivation by villagers.

 

But a lasting victory will only be won once reserves and other forest

areas get real protection from man's activities.

 

" India's population explosion and the unwillingness of people on the

ground to implement the laws have left elephants high and dry, "

Banerjee of WWF said.