Engaging communities in conservation efforts is critical as India is witnessing an increase in conflicts between people and pachyderms
Hathi mitras trek 5-15 km every day inside the Udanti-Sitanadi Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh to track the movement of elephants and alert village residents if the animals are in close proximity. (Photographs: Prajjwal Thakur) In the heart of the dense forests of Chhattisgarh, an important initiative is underway to safeguard elephants and the human settlements living on the fringes. This unique endeavour involves members of the local community, known as hathi mitras or friends of elephants, who work round the clock to maintain a vigilant watch on the movement of the elephants and warn village residents if the animal is in close proximity.
Jitendra Kunjam, a hathi mitra stationed at the Udanti-Sitanadi Tiger Reserve that spreads across Gariaband and Dhamtari districts, shares his recent experiences. For the past two months, elephants have been residing within the forest, feeding on roots, bamboos and lush green leaves. During a recent expedition, Kunjam, along with fellow trackers, encountered elephants from a safe distance as they rested in the afternoon shade.
“Elephants are not typically found in the reserve. So when a herd of 20-30 elephants migrated from Odisha to our forests in 2019-20, we were tasked with monitoring their movements,” says Narendra Mandavi, who earlier used to monitor forest fires.
“Due to the overpopulation of elephants in Odisha’s forests, we are witnessing their displacement to Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Such displacements often lead to conflicts, as people attack the elephants out of fear, prompting aggressive behaviour from the animals. The hathi mitra initiative that was started in 2021 has played a crucial role in preventing such conflicts,” says Varun Kumar Jain, deputy director of the tiger reserve. He adds that the reserve can accommodate around 200 elephants.
“We have learnt a lot about elephants,” says Dheluram Sahu, another hathi mitra. “We know that before they begin to walk, elephants scratch their leg on the ground, raise their trunk and move their ears. We also know that elephants generally move forward. This is the reason we always station ourselves behind the herd,” says Sahu. Elephants use their trucks to spray dust in the air to warn us if we are too close, he adds.
“Elephant tracking is a demanding task. During the day, when elephants typically rest, the mitras monitor them on foot, while at night, when they move around for food, the mitras accompany the forest department’s patrolling van,” says Devdutta Taram, ranger of the Arsi-Kanhar section of the reserve.
Initially, hathi mitras alerted village residents of elephant threats through munaadi, the traditional practice of hooting to raise an alarm. But in early 2023, the Chhattisgarh forest department introduced the “Chhattisgarh Elephant and Alert” mobile application in the state. Now hathi mitras update the location of the herds on the application, which identifies the villages within a radius of 20 km to the herds and sends alerts on the mobile phones of the village residents through voice notes and WhatsApp messages.
Since the application’s implementation, confrontations have decreased, with no human deaths reported in the area, says Jain. The presence of elephants in the region has also enriched the ecosystem. “They have made the forests less vulnerable to fires and reduced illegal tree felling and encroachment,” says Jain.
Over 1,000 km from the Udanti-Sitanadi Tiger Reserve, another community-led initiative is underway in the Katarniaghat forest sanctuary. Unlike Udanti-Sitanadi, Katarniaghat in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh is a part of the Terai Elephant Reserve and the Indo-Nepal Khata elephant corridor.
As a result, the communities in and around the reserve have voluntarily started tracking the movement of elephants, along with the help of wildlife organisations. When an elephant herd nears a village, the volunteers, called gaja mitras, camp atop temporary elevated watch towers, and the village residents use firecrackers to wade them off.
In February this year, the gaja mitras, along with their counterparts in Nepal, started a WhatsApp group, “Indo Nepal Human Animal Conflict Group”, for sharing elephant movement across the border. “Elephants cause loss of life and property in both the countries. The solution lies only with the community living in the forest. Creating the WhatsApp group is a step taken in this direction,” says Dabir Hasan, project officer, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), India, which helped set up the WhatsApp group that has gaja mitras, forest officials and community members from Nepal.
The volunteers have been identified on the basis of a baseline survey conducted by the Nature Environment and Wildlife Society in 2020, in which the non-profit identified the five most vulnerable villages. “The villages recorded 12 deaths and crop loss across 16 hectares in 2018-20. Next, 89 gaja mitras were trained in the villages,” says Abhishek, project manager of the non-profit. He adds that after the Terai Elephant Reserve was formed in 2022, the number of vulnerable villages have increased to 10. We are training gaja mitras there, he adds. The volunteers are trained in understanding elephant behaviour, and are given reflectors and torches for patrolling the forest edge at night.
One of the reasons behind the initiative is the fact that the forest officials in Terai, the most recent of the 33 elephant reserves in the country, have till date not received any funds from the government. The other is the increase in elephant population in the area in the past decade. “In 2006, only one or two elephants used to come here through the Khata corridor. Since 2010, the arrival of these elephants has increased and now a significant number of them have migrated to the forests of Katraniya itself,” says Irfan Ahmed, the former deputy ranger at the Katarniaghat sanctuary.
The reason for this change, he says, is that while Nepal has stopped growing sugarcane around the corridor, its farming has picked up in India in the recent years. According to the “Elephant Corridors of India” report released in 2023 by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC), 56 elephants regularly use the corridor and another 66 elephants roam regularly in the wildlife sanctuary.
The success of the two initiatives highlights the potential to engage communities in conservation efforts, which is critical as India is witnessing an increase in human-elephant conflicts.
According to MOEFCC, the country recorded 97 human deaths due to elephant attacks in 2022-23, up from 52 in 2018-19. In the five years, such conflicts claimed over 389 human lives in the country.
This was first published in the 1-15 April, 2024 print edition of Down To Earth
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