The Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO) has urged CM Naveen Patnaik to approve proposed expansion of two Elephant Reserves of Odisha such as the Mahanadi Elephant Reserve and the Sambalpur Elephant Reserve to reduce surging human-animal conflicts and safety of the pachyderms.
In a letter, WSO secretary Dr Biswajit Mohanty said that the much needed approval would be a generous gift to elephants and affected people on the occasion of the ongoing celebrations of Wildlife Week. The expansion would also be a leading example to showcase Odisha’s biggest mitigation measure to control HEC to provide safe home for elephants, Mohanty told.Mohanty further told that the Chief Wildlife Warden, Odisha had proposed to expand the two Elephant Reserves of the State going by the recommendation of a recent study aimed at addressing the raging Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) in Odisha.
The study suggested the expansion of the Elephant Reserves would control the spiralling human-elephant conflict (HEC) in Odisha that has taken a heavy toll of human lives and also elephants in last 10 years.
Accordingly, the various forest divisions have carried out extensive surveys and have proposed to expand the Mahanadi Elephant Reserve from 1038.30 sq km (at present) to 2,472 sq km and the Sambalpur Elephant Reserve from 468 sq km (at present) to approximately 2,700 sq km, he said. The WSO sought to say that though the expansion plan has been submitted long ago in December last to the Department of Forest and Environment for approval, however, it was still pending for approval though 10 months have passed.
"In the last ten years and six months, from 2010-11 to September,2020, we have found that 797 elephants have died in Odisha. About 45 per cent of these deaths are caused by unnatural causes as they are compelled to come out of their degraded and conflict ridden habitats.
From 2009-10 to 2019-20, Odisha farmers have suffered crop loss to elephant depredation in 1,29,963.24 acres of farmland and 12,568 houses were damaged. The Government had to give away compensation of Rs 96.12 crore and Rs 6.06 crore respectively for the same.
During the same period, 858 humans were killed and 454 were injured in elephant encounters for which the Government gave compensation of Rs 20.14 crore as death compensation," said letter.