Elephant corridors not secure, jumbos die

In the last four years of the NDA rule, nearly 50 elephants were killed in what is known as elephant-corridors – a narrow patch of forest meant to provide a safe passage to the jumbos.

The statistics, shared by the Union Environment Ministry with Parliament members, demonstrated how little progress was made in protecting these corridors in the last eight years after an Elephant Task Force flagged the importance of securing these corridors to facilitate trouble-free movement of the tuskers.

Earlier this year, when the Supreme Court reviewed the status of these corridors, it found most of the states didn't even respond to the environment ministry when asked about the status of the corridors in their states. Only Kerala, Meghalaya and West Bengal responded.

On April 23, the top court asked 19 states, Karnataka included, to submit their response within a month. But when the matter came up for a hearing on July 12, the SC bench was informed that as many as 14 of the 19 states didn't submit their response. Most including Karnataka were not even represented by a lawyer in the court.

Taking a serious note of the situation, the bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta described it a "crisis". It ordered Tamil Nadu to stop all construction works being undertaken in elephant corridors and directed the collector of the Nilgiri to submit a plan of action in the next hearing.

The plan of action, it said, should be with respect to the elephant corridors as mentioned in the Report of the Elephant Task Force as well as the area described as expanded corridors.

Based on a 2005 report, the elephant task force identified 88 elephant corridors, out of which 27 fall into priority-I (three in Karnataka) and 61 in priority-II categories. Later it was found that at least seven corridors were not being by the elephants and 18-20 new ones cropped up.

According to a 2015 report prepared by the Wildlife Trust of India out of 101 corridors that are currently being used by the elephants, 28 are in Southern India, 25 in Central India, 23 in North-eastern India, 14 in Northern West Bengal and 11 in North-western India.

An estimated 69.3% of these corridors are being regularly used by elephants, either around the year or in a particular season, and 24.7% are being used occasionally.

On a regional basis, about 39% of the corridors in North-eastern India and 32% of the corridors in Southern India are of one kilometre or less, suggesting that the fragmentation of elephant habitats is less severe in these regions (and most severe in northern West Bengal).

In fact, Buxa forest in north Bengal and Rajaji national park in Uttarakhand are notorious for elephant's death after being collided by a speeding train. In the last two decades, 25 jumbos were killed in the Rajaji park along a corridor between Motichur and Kansrau ranges.

Such accidents are common place in Buxa forest of West Bengal particularly after 2004 as gauge conversion led to an increase in the speed of trains between Siliguri and Alipurduar.

Both were among the 27 critical elephant corridors in 22 states that the Union Environment Ministry wants to secure. But with barely any action on the ground, the fate of these corridors – and the pachyderms that use them – hang in limbo.