Kerala’s human-animal conflict meets political theatre

Even though human-animal conflict is not unique to Kerala, it continues to generate intense public debate in the state — largely due to political interventions, the latest being Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s call for culling.

Between 2020 and 2024, as many as 460 people were killed and 4,527 were injured in such conflicts. Snake bites and encounters with elephants, wild boars, and tigers account for most of these cases.

While the threat posed by human-animal conflict is indisputable, the root causes of the problems are widely acknowledged yet seldom addressed. Even a report by the Kerala State Planning Board acknowledges that human-wildlife conflicts are largely a ‘human-induced phenomenon’.

What the state often sees is not serious debates on the problems and solutions but political blame games and playing to the galleries.

The recent decision by the state cabinet to recommend amending the Wildlife Protection Act to allow culling is widely seen as a political move ahead of the upcoming Nilambur assembly by-poll in Malappuram district, a region prone to human-animal conflicts. A similar demand of the Kerala government had previously been rejected by the Centre.

Earlier, a set of amendments to the Kerala Forest Act —which aimed to strengthen enforcement of forest laws through higher penalties and new regulations— was also scrapped by the government due to strong opposition from high-range farmers.

The state forest department and various agencies have successfully implemented several mitigation measures, such as planting turmeric along forest boundaries and creating water holes inside forests. However, little effort has been made to scale up or publicise such initiatives.

Wildlife activists cite several key factors driving the surge in conflicts in Kerala: illegal activities within forests affecting the wildlife, the cultivation of crops that attract wild animals, encroachments on the natural habitats and pathways of animals and tourism lobbies deliberately attracting wild animals to entertain guests.

But the state government has largely ignored these underlying issues. Instead, it cites culling practices in foreign countries to justify its own stance.

Ecologists challenge this comparison with a series of counterpoints.

In Australia, kangaroo culling takes place where populations run into a few lakhs. In Kerala, the total number of elephants is around 2,000 and tigers 170. Moreover, Australia has been using humane control tools, and Europe has integrated ethics, science, and law in wildlife management. These points were raised in a mass petition submitted by a group of ecologists opposing the chief minister’s call for culling. They also point out that Kerala’s wild elephant population has plummeted by as much as 58% over a five-year period — from 5,706 in 2017 to just 2,386 in 2023.

The panel headed by Society for Protection of Cruelty Against Animals-Idukki president and former Kerala State Animal Welfare Board member M N Jayachandran also stressed the need for a scientific study to address the issue.

The politics over man-animal conflicts is particularly intense in high-range regions, where farmers predominantly from the Christian community are the most vocal. Christian priests often lead protests, and church leaders have openly taken a political stance on the matter.

While the Congress-led United Democratic Front and the CPM-led Left Democratic Front were so far accusing each other of playing appeasement politics over man-animal conflicts, the BJP-led NDA in Kerala also seems to be trying to cash in on the resentment over man-animal conflict in the Nilambur by-poll.

A local leader of the regional party Kerala Congress (Joseph), Mohan George, has been fielded as the BJP candidate—his Christian identity seen as key to appealing to the roughly 10% Christian vote bank, which could play a key role in the tightly fought election.

Now that the CPM government in Kerala has sought approval from the BJP-led Centre for culling, it may try to shift responsibility to the Union government. There is also no surprise if the Centre takes a favourable decision on the state’s demand.

One pressing concern that Kerala faces is the wild boar menace extending up to cities. In order to address the wild boar menace, the state government already gave a nod to local bodies to kill wild boars that pose a threat to human lives. Over the last three years, around 5,000 wild boars have been killed.

Questionable development perspectives also often come under criticism for aggravating human-animal conflicts. While the senna and teak plantations have long been criticised, now the proposed tunnel road through the ecologically fragile forest of Wayanad has come under fire.

“The environmental clearance reports for the project itself specifically point out that the project could cause hindrance for elephants’ movement. It seems that the authorities are either unwilling to learn lessons from the past or are succumbing to vested interest lobbies,” says N Badusha, Wayanad Prakrithi Samrakshana Samathi president.