Relevance: GS Paper III
Why has this article surfaced?
The Supreme Court’s order to seal and close 27 resorts operating in corridors used by elephants in the Nilgiris is a necessary step to restore the ecology of these spaces.
Importance of Supreme Court’s order
- Weak regulation of ecotourism is severely impacting important habitats, and affecting animals that have large home ranges, like elephants.
- Fragmentation of forests makes it all the more important to preserve migratory corridors.
The elephant pathways
- The movement of elephants is essential to ensure that their populations are genetically viable, and help regenerate forests on which other species, including tigers, depend.
- Ending human interference in the pathways of elephants is a conservation imperative, more so because the animals are then not forced to seek alternative routes that bring them into conflict with people.
- Forests that have turned into farms and unbridled tourism are blocking their paths, resulting in growing incidents of elephant-human conflict. These encounters claim the lives of about 450 people and lead to the death of nearly 100 elephants in retaliatory actions every year on average.
- Nearly three-quarters of the elephant corridors are evenly divided among southern, central and northeastern forests, while the rest are found in northwest Bengal and the northwestern region. Some of these passages are precariously narrow, at only a hundred metres wide.
Way forward
- There should be complete protection of the routes they regularly use.
- The grey area of mushrooming home- stay structures, which are just hotels on forest fringes, also deserves scrutiny.
- The effort should be to expand elephant corridors, using the successful models within the country, including acquisition of lands using private funds and their transfer to the government.
- Among the major factors affecting conservation, two need quick remedies: about 40% of elephant reserves are vulnerable, as they are not within protected parks and sanctuaries; and the corridors have no specific legal protection.
- Illegal structures in these pathways should be removed without delay.
