The rising incidents of man- elephant conflicts in the North-East seem to be having its repercussions on the international borders of Bhutan. Experts from the country and various South East Asian nations have called for an uninterrupted elephant corridors as part of trans-border cooperation during the two-day international conference that concluded in Guwahati recently.
The matter came up for discussion at a conference on Securing Habitats — Diffusing Conflicts in Bhutan-India-Myanmar — aimed to chalk out a roadmap to protect the elephants. Experts including Ajay Desai, co-chair of Asian Elephant Specialist Group under IUCN, Khyne U Mar, known as the “elephant lady” of Myanmar, Raman Sukumar, elephant expert and member of National Board For Wildlife, and Bhutan’s special advisor to the National Environment Commission, Dasho Paljor J Dorji, Jagdish Kishwan, former additional director general (wildlife) of the ministry of environment and forests amongst others attended the conference.
Bhutan shares a long international border with Assam. The Assam-side of the border is, however, fast parting with its green cover resulting in escalating man-elephant conflict. This, in turn, is triggering a similar conflict situation in Bhutan, with more elephant herds moving to the Bhutan side in search for space and food, said the experts.
“The conflict intensifies during the period from March to September coinciding with the cropping season. Paddy is harvested in September,” pointed out Dorji from Bhutan.The jungles of Bhutan arte home to about 800 elephants spread across a habitat area of 2,000 sq kms.
Wildlife scientist Raman Sukumar from the Centre of Ecological Studies who was also a member of the first Elephant task Force of the country analysed the reasons of habitat loss and fragmentation, for increasing man-elephant conflict in the country and suggested remedial measures. According to him India and Sri lanka still have sustainable elephant population unlike in most other South East Asian nations where elephant numbers have plummeted, which holds hope for the future.
But securing a safe future for the pachyderms call for protection and restoration of both habitat and corridors, he said. According to him, forty per cent of elephant reserves and no elephant corridor in the country has legal protection. The issue had not been resolved despite the Environment Ministry working out a process to provide legal status to elephant reserves and corridors, said the experts.
Such a step would definitely help the Northeast as it has the largest presence of elephant corridors in the country , which has suffered a lot from destruction of habitat. According to official figures, the Northeast alone has 58 elephant corridors which is 35 per cent of the country’s corridors and over 9,000 elephants.