Page 34 - Demo

Towards a
Secured Elephant
Landscape
Securing the Thirunelli- Kudrakote Elephant Corridor, Kerala
Sandeep Kr Tiwari1.1*, Vivek Menon1.2, Upasana Ganguly2,
K Ramkumar2, Ramith M1
1. IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group 2. Wildlife Trust of India
SIntroduction
trategies for conservation of elephants in India should aim at wildlife areas beyond protected areas and adopt a landscape approach. India has about 110,000 Km2 of elephant habitat but
a large proportion of the current range of elephants lies outside the protected areas. Only 28% of the 32 existing and proposed Elephant Reserves are under Protected Area. The growing human population and developmental activities has placed a great strain on the habitat of the elephant with people and elephants struggling to share the same space. Encounters have become increasingly frequent, and in- creasingly violent with over 450-500 human deaths every year due to elephants and 100 elephants are killed as a result of confrontations. To prevent this situation from escalating further and for long-term conservation of the species, it is important to adopt a landscape ap- proach and work towards securing the corridors traditionally used by elephants to ensure their free movement across the landscape. The Elephant Task Force 2010 also strongly recommended the landscape level conservation and that the corridors be legally protected and se- cured.
The Thirunelli-Kudrakote corridor in the Brahmagiri-Nilgiri Eastern Ghats landscape is located at the border of Karnataka and Kerala.
Right:
Elephants at Tirunelli Kudra- kote Corridor Kerala
@Shajan MA
34