‘Permanent alternative to human-elephant conflict elusive’: Vinod Krishnan
In conversation with the wildlife conservationist.
Wildlife conservationist Vinod Krishnan labored with Character Conservation Foundation and studied the human-elephant conflict in Hassan for six a long time. His function focusses on building mitigation strategies as a result of investigation and stakeholder engagement. In this interview, Krishnan talks of why a everlasting answer is elusive.
Why do you say a long lasting resolution is not probable?
We often see conflict just from a human viewpoint. It is incredibly important to also see this from the elephant’s point of view. Elephants are habitat generalists and can endure in different habitat kinds. The fragmented landscape of Hassan, dominated by espresso estates and agricultural fields, is able to cater to the animal’s dietary needs, and can make it a preferable place for the elephants irrespective of the threats of living in human-dominated landscapes.
The Karnataka Elephant Undertaking Force in its 2012 report specified the area as an “Elephant Removal Zone”. Do you concur with this?
The reduction of livelihoods because of to crop and home damage has deeply influenced community farmers and coffee planters. This has set huge force on the Karnataka Forest Division. With so considerably at stake, the KETF advisable a zone-based mostly conservation tactic and selected Hassan an “Elephant Removing Zone”. The Hassan elephant population, nonetheless, is not an isolated 1. There is motion of elephants from Kodagu in the south, Chikkamagaluru to the north, and resident elephants in Bisle Point out Forest in Sakleshpur taluk, which is contiguous with the Western Ghats. It is essential to be aware that there has been regular movement of elephants [to Hassan] from neighbouring locations. That is why regardless of the mass captures in 2013-14, there are now 60-65 elephants in the region.
As section of your operate, you and your team devised the Early Warning System to apprise villagers of elephant movement. How profitable is it?
A majority of human deaths in Hassan have happened due to the fact people today have been unaware of elephant presence in their vicinity. The EWS has been a vital intervention in minimising direct encounters between men and women and elephants. Coupled with Quick Response Teams and radio collaring of a couple elephants by the forest division, it has helped deliver well timed information about elephant presence.
Will the barrier manufactured of railway barricades along the Hemavathi Reservoir avert the influx of elephants from Kodagu to Hassan?
Boundaries get the job done very well in landscapes with tough boundaries—forest on a person side and human habitations on the other. In fragmented landscapes, large-scale barriers may have a unfavorable effects on elephant movement, leading to conflict intensifying in some locations. Monitoring elephant motion amongst Hassan and Kodagu intently, where by the railway barrier has presently been deployed, would deliver vital insights on regardless of whether it is efficient.