Yadav also released the Preliminary Report on Human Elephant Conflict and a booklet titled Trumpet
A wild elephant charges a man on the Indo-Nepal border. Photo: iStock
Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change launched a field manual to guide forest staffers dealing with human-elephant conflict (HEC) in major elephant range states on April 29, 2022.
The minister launched Field Manual for Managing Human-Elephant Conflicts in India at the Forest Research Institute (FRI) in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
He chaired the 16th Steering Committee meeting of Project Elephant at FRI. “Various aspects related to elephant conservation were discussed,” Yadav tweeted.
Besides the manual, Yadav also released the Preliminary Report on Human Elephant Conflict and a booklet titled Trumpet.
Also released the Preliminary Report on Human Elephant Conflict, Manual on how to handle situations during Human Elephant Conflict and a booklet titled 'Trumpet'. pic.twitter.com/Ya4VPJ7QIH
— Bhupender Yadav (@byadavbjp) April 29, 2022
The manual has been prepared by the ministry, along with the Wildlife Institute of India (WWI) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF India), according to a statement by WWF.
India is home to approximately around 27,000 Asian Elephants, which is the world’s largest population of the species.
“However, as human populations have grown and elephant habitats have been altered by development, HEC has resulted in unfortunate and tragic outcomes for both people and elephants,” the WWF statement read.
Yadav had told the Rajya Sabha August 2, 2021, that human-elephant conflict had caused 1,401 human and 301 elephant deaths in India from 2018-2020.
Some 115 elephants and 457 people had died in 2018-19, while 99 elephants and 585 people had died in 2019-20. In 2020-21 (up to December 2020), 87 elephants and 359 people had lost their lives in human-elephant conflict.
Some 30 elephant reserves have been established so far in 14 major elephant states, according to the Union government.
“As per the information provided by the Government of Karnataka, a Karnataka Elephant Task Force was constituted which submitted its report in 2012. The report highlighted the major causes of HEC to be due to fragmentation of habitats, habitat loss, change in cropping pattern etc,” Yadav’s reply had stated.
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