New elephant landscape covering State mooted

In its report submitted on Tuesday, the Task Force has proposed that the new landscape with a sizeable population of elephants and distributed over 12,000 sq km, extends from Brahmagiri Hills in the south through Nilgiri Hills and east through Eastern Ghats in the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala with a splinter group in Andhra Pradesh. The landscape covers two major national parks and three wildlife sanctuaries of Bandipur, Nagarhole, Biligirirangana Swamy Hill, Kaveri and Brahmagiri.

Mudumalai and Wayanad of Tamil Nadu and Kerala are also included in the proposed landscape. Koundinya wildlife sanctuary with an area of 356 sq km in Andhra Pradesh, where 22 elephants made their home in the late 80s is also included in the new landscape.

The report says that diversity in vegetation ranging from dry thorn forest to shola grasslands make it one of the best elephant reserves in the country with a demographically and genetically viable population. “This is the largest population of elephants in the country and possibly in Asia,” says the report.

It also says that the large extent of the habitat with diverse vegetation types and a number of cash crop cultivated areas and human settlements within, make it one of the most complex regions in terms of conservation challenges.

Pointing out that the connectivity between Nagarhole Tiger Reserve and Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary is broken by the presence of coffee estates, the report suggests that the maintenance of habitat continuity through the existing corridors or through consolidation of habitat minimising or mitigating the ill effects of human-elephant interaction and control of poaching, control of fire and other degradation factors would help maintaining the integrity of habitat. The report says that the maintenance of these corridors through appropriate measures, relocations of selected private holdings and stringent protection measures would ensure long-term survival of this population.

The other landscapes include: Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong-Intanki; Kameng-Sonitpur;  East Central; North Western; Eastern South Bank; North Bengal-Greater Manas; Meghalaya; Annamalai-Nelliampathy-High Range; and Periyar-Agasthyamalai.