World Elephant Day: Environment Minister calls for identifying areas of human-elephant conflict

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 12

On the World Elephant Day, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav called for identifying areas of human-elephant conflict, recommending a “bottom up approach” towards conservation involving local communities.

Yadav also released the population estimation protocol to be adopted for an all-India elephant and tiger population estimation in 2022. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for the first time is converging elephant and tiger population estimation, the protocol for which was released today.

Yadav said there has been a pressing need to improve and harmonise the population estimation methods along more scientific lines and expressed happiness that the Ministry for the first time is converging both elephant and tiger population estimation.

Stressing on the involvement of local and indigenous people in the conservation of elephants, Yadav said “the bottom up approach will also help in minimising human-elephant conflict as well”.

Minister of State Ashwini Kumar Chaubey said saving elephants is like saving forests and saving forests leads to saving the entire ecosystem. He exhorted all, especially the youth, to nurture and carry forward the traditional ethos of Indian culture of living in harmony with nature and wildlife.

Asian elephants are listed as “endangered” on the IUCN Red List of threatened species. This has been done as most of the range states except India, have lost their viable elephant populations due to loss of habitats and poaching.

The current population estimates indicate that there are about 50,000-60,000 Asian elephants in the world, according to the government’ statistics

More than 60 per cent of the population is held in India.

Indian elephant was also listed in the Appendix I of the Convention of the Migratory species in the Conference of Parties of CMS 13t in February 2020.

World Elephant Day is being celebrated to bring attention to various stakeholders to support various conservation policies to help elephants, including improving enforcement policies to prevent the illegal poaching and trade of ivory, conserving elephant habitats, providing better treatment for captive elephants and reintroducing some captive elephants into sanctuaries.

Elephant is the Natural Heritage Animal of India.

India also celebrates this day to spread awareness towards conservation of the species.