Mumbai: The unfavourable human-elephant interactions in India have an effect on practically half 1,000,000 households yearly due to a number of causes. 

“Human-elephant negative interaction in India affects nearly half a million families every year. Most of the conflict occurs when elephants feed on crops. Annually, deaths of over 500 humans and 100 elephants are reported in negative interactions in India. Elephants damage crops and property worth millions of rupees every year,” says Kedar Gore, Director, The Corbett Foundation (TCF).

The TCF has come out with a compilation Trampled Boundaries, which presents a profound exploration of the intricate relationship between humanity and Asian elephants.

According to him, it’s predicted that the impacts of local weather change mixed with the speedy land use adjustments in India might trigger an extra discount in elephant habitat by as a lot as 42 p.c by the top of the century. Meanwhile, elephants have continued adapting and shifting areas to seek out appropriate habitats past their identified current ranges.

The current elephant habitat in India is round 2,50,000 sq km and harbours practically 30,000 elephants, which is 60 per cent of the present world wild elephant inhabitants. Historians imagine that within the late sixteenth century, round 15,000-16,000 elephants have been held captive by the Mughals and different erstwhile kingdoms in India. 

“It is also believed that this figure rose to around 30,000 by the first decade of the 17th century and is a good enough indicator of the population of wild and captive elephants in India then, as the wild elephants were found across several parts of India, many of which are completely urbanized today and the elephants extirpated. In independent India, around 4.13 million hectares of forest were lost between 1951 to 1976 due to river valley projects and other developmental pressures, that in turn led to devastating fragmentation of elephant habitats,” writes Gore. 

India has positioned elephants in Schedule I of its Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and, for the reason that launch of Project Elephant in 1992, declared 32 elephant reserves overlaying round 65,000 sq. km., which is barely a small fraction of its historic vary and simply 2 per cent of India’s whole landmass.

Although the wild elephant inhabitants in India is believed to be secure, the continued anthropogenic pressures of habitat loss, fragmentation, linear infrastructure growth, altering land use patterns, and growing human-elephant unfavourable interactions have put the conservation, safety and welfare of untamed elephants at stake. Elephant poaching for ivory was an enormous downside between 1970 and 2004, until the notorious poacher and ivory smuggler Veerappan’s loss of life. Killing elephants for ivory severely affected the male-to-female ratio, dropping it to as little as 1:100 in Periyar Tiger Reserve.

As the present elephant habitats face the onslaught of fragmentation and deterioration, the previous couple of a long time have seen recolonisation makes an attempt by elephants of their previous ranges in some areas in India, together with the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Areas reported to have wild elephants previously have been Narwar, Ghoraghat, Ratanpur, Nandanpur, Sarguja, Bastar, Malwa Plateau, Rewa, Raisen, Hoshangabad (Narmadapuram) within the undivided Madhya Pradesh.