The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on Friday constituted a task force to deal specifically with the intensifying man-elephant conflict in Karnataka.
According to MoEF's order, the task force will “look into the entire gamut of issues related to man-elephant conflict in Karnataka, with special reference to the Hassan-Kodagu area.”
It will also examine the feasibility of translocating elephants through consultation with local communities, international experts in elephant behaviour and others.
The eight-member task force comprises Ajay Desai, member of Project Elephant Steering Committee; R. Sukumar, professor at the Indian Institute of Science; Sharat Chandra Lele, sociologist at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment; C.H. Basappanavar, retired forest officer; S.S. Bisht, former director of project elephant; B.R. Deepak, advocate; N.K. Madhusudan, elephant biologist and the Chief Conservator of Forests, Mysore Elephant reserve.
Conflict hub
Special focus will be placed on the elephant population in Kattepura Reserve Forest, which, along with the adjacent Alur forest range is one of the hotbeds of conflict in the Hassan-Kodagu border.
The Karnataka High Court had, earlier this month, directed the Union Government to constitute a special task force to find a solution to the man-elephant conflict in Karnataka, especially in the Alur forest range in Hassan.
The elephants at Alur featured prominently in discussions at a daylong consultative workshop on human-elephant conflict held on Saturday at the Forest Department.
Mr. Desai advocated the translocation of a group of 25 to 30 elephants that routinely raid crops around the very fragmented forests of Alur range.
Making a case for capturing and relocating these elephants, Mr. Desai said that 33 people were killed in encounters with elephants here between 1986 and 2006, creating a “fear psychosis” among local communities. Correspondingly, in just four years between 2006 and 2010, nine elephants have been electrocuted by people in retaliation.
Last November, the Karnataka High Court refused to grant permission for the translocation of this herd from Alur forest range.
Minister's intent
At a press conference at the end of the workshop, Forest Minister C.P. Yogeshwar said that recommendations to the Government would include the translocation of elephants in the conflict-ridden taluks of Hassan. “We will capture the 25 elephants and translocate them to a distant place as an experimentation, and if they return, we will take them into captivity,” he said.
