Human-Elephant Conflict Mitigation

The Mahasamund area of Chhattisgarh is currently in the throes of human-elephant conflict ever since a herd of 19 wild elephants moved into the region after they were possibly displaced from the shrinking forests of Orissa or Jharkhand. Regular instances of crop-raiding and destruction of human habitations are the reason for the escalation of conflict. When the Chhattisgarh Forest Department took the initiative to minimize the rapidly growing Human Elephant Conflict (HEC), Wildlife SOS came up with a unique plan to use radio-collars on the wild elephant herd so as to issue timely alerts to the villages, by effectively tracking the elephants’ movements.

The radio-collaring programme has been successful in raising awareness and involving local communities as stakeholders to effectively mitigate human-elephant conflict situations. The radio-collar tracks the location of the matriarch of the herd so we can monitor whether or not she is approaching human settlement areas. Predicting the matriarch’s location helps in assessing her possible route, which helps in reaching out to local community representatives to raise alerts in the village. This has led to the mitigation of conflict in areas which are prone to human-elephant encounters. Interactive discussions on biology, behaviour and ecology of wild elephants and the safety measures that can be adopted to avoid conflicts were conducted in awareness workshops. These sessions also educate the villagers about  reasons for such conflict, elephant behaviour, essential conflict mitigation strategies, and the importance of Early Warning Systems (EWS). In fact, through these sessions,  volunteers actively help in alerting the villages when the elephants are nearby, thereby making communication during the time of distress more efficient and reliable.