Citing a number of instances from the affected states as also the concern expressed by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and UN, Tuhina Bannerji points out how the man-animal conflict is fast spiralling out of control and suggests what can be done to ensure that both remain in their natural habitats and co-exist peacefully as they should.
It was never such an “uneasy coexistence” between humans and wildlife. Worse still, nobody knows where it’s headed. A recent spate of man-animal conflicts – mostly reported from Kerala and Uttarakhand – have jolted the policymakers out of their slumber and left environmental groups perplexed.
Humans attacked by wild animals, mauled or killed, retaliatory killings, animals being trapped, compensation to the victims, call for action against law-breakers, protests to amend forest laws, cry to give up knee-jerk reactions and political slugfest – it’s all happening out there.
In February, wild elephant attacks resulted in the killing of 42-year-old Mananthavady resident Ajish in Wayanad and an employee of Eco Tourism Centre in Pulpally. These put the locals on the warpath against the administration. Things turned ugly when hundreds of people vandalised and attacked a jeep belonging to the Kerala forest department at Pulpally. There was a dusk to dawn strike, prompting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to devise a comprehensive plan to tackle the situation.
In Uttarakhand, 80 children coming to study in Government Inter College were provided security by the forest department after locals in Dhela range in Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) upped their ante against the Pushkar Singh Dhami-led government. A day earlier, a woman gone to collect wood from the forest, was killed by a tiger. This was close on the heels of five women getting injured in a leopard attack in Tehri Garhwal region. Pressure is also being mounted by Sanyukta Sangharsh Samiti, a local community group, to check the spate of attacks by big cats else they would shut down the reserve indefinitely.
The group is vociferously campaigning to strike off tigers, leopards and wild boars from the protected species list of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1973 and relocate wildlife from the region. The Corbett Tiger Reserve currently houses around 600 tigers and more than 3,000 leopards. CM Dhami, like Vijayan, has instructed the Forest Secretary and Wildlife Warden to chalk out an effective plan.
The conflict throws up some unsettling questions: Why has the situation become alarming; what next and the consequences; the solutions; and if the steps are enough?
To understand the entire issue we must take a closer look at the statistics – even though figures tell us only half the story.
Telling figures
In July 2021, a joint report by the UN Environment Programme and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said: “No country in the world would be as affected by human-animal conflict in the upcoming years as India.” It warned that India’s “burgeoning human population” is “reaching the threshold of tolerance” regarding people’s coexistence with wild animals. A Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS) research said that India is a high-wildlife, high-conflict country, with an average of 80,000 incidents reported per year.
Ironically, while we hail the rising number of big cats – 200 in the last four years – attributing it to the success of ‘Project Tiger’, we are also grappling with the increasing incidents of man-animal confrontations.
A Kerala Forest Department data of March 2022 says the state has, since 2011, reported 34,875 cases of wildlife attacks, leaving 1,233 dead , 6,803 injured and 621 cases of crop destruction. The loss is more than Rs 3 crore. In Uttarakhand, 444 people got killed in wild animal attacks since 2017 till now while 1,396 leopards died from 2000–2020.
In 2022, the conflict peaked in Maharashtra when 105 humans lost their lives. In 2021, 84 people died mostly involving tigers.
In Karnataka, between 2018 and 2023, 155 people were killed and around 5000 injured in attacks by wild animals. In 2023-24, in nine months, 14 elephants have died, most due to electrocution. The problem has spilled onto urban pockets in Bengaluru where leopard attacks have spiked in the outskirts.
In 2018, seven elephants were electrocuted in Odisha — notoriously called “graveyard” for elephants. In UP and MP the situation is equally bad. The Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR), Dudhwa Tiger Reserve (DTR) and the upcoming Amangarh Tiger Reserve (ATR) have reported more than three dozen deaths due to big cats. West Bengal topped the number of killed by tigers and the second-highest by elephants between 2014 and 2019.
An RTI query reveals 3,310 people have died in India due to attacks by wild elephants in the last seven years.
The surge and its impact
Deforestation due to population growth and lopsided urbanisation goes a long way in driving up this crisis. Shrinking habitats force the wild animals to venture out into human habitations in search of food, causing them to confront people living close by. In many places, populated human settlements and farmlands can be found near protected forests which results in man-animal interaction.
A 2021 WWF-N and UN joint report pointed out that India has currently more than 700, mostly disjointed, protected areas. Seventy per cent of elephant ranges, 40 per cent of lion ranges and 35 per cent of tiger ranges are outside protected areas. This multiplies the confrontations.
On 3 June 2022, the Supreme Court mandated a minimum of 1 km ecologically sensitive zone, or buffer zone, around all protected forests in the country, but it was opposed vigorously by many villagers.
Crores go into compensation for the victims and their kin. In Uttarakhand alone, from 2017 to December 2023, over Rs 21.38 crore were disbursed as compensation. This ex-gratia is earmarked in the budget but no provisions exist to curb the man-animal conflicts. The forest department in most states is too under-staffed to check tree felling which reduces forest cover, forcing wild animals to move out of their habitats.
With rising human population, pressure on wild habitats has increased. Earlier, all wildlands used to be forests good for grazing, but now they have been turned into agriculture and horticulture lands, and at some places into industries.
Climate changes are also disturbing floral biodiversity, which creates a dearth of food in the forests. Since 2000, 54,800 hectares of forest cover in Uttarakhand has been destroyed by wildfires. Their natural habitats getting destroyed, animals move into semi-urban and urban areas for food, water and shelter. Both humans and animals jostle for space.
India has lost nearly 10 % of its elephant population since the last census in 2012 – thanks to the gradual loss of their corridors.
The way out
After the February elephant attack incidents, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan called for the deployment of 250 advanced cameras along forest borders and wildlife corridors to monitor wildlife movements. He also ordered round-the-clock patrolling of state forests. He asked to create neighbourhood WhatsApp groups and use public address systems to alert residents about wildlife movements.
Similarly, Uttarakhand CM directed to install wire (solar) fencing to prevent wildlife intrusion. For immediate medicare post attacks, veterinarians should be deployed 24×7 in areas prone to such conflicts, he suggested.
But are these steps adequate? Shouldn’t there be a Special Task Force to ensure these conflicts are controlled and the losses mitigated? It is imperative that wildlife corridors are safeguarded from human intrusion. Stakeholders need to be sensitised about the community-based conservation programmes that can reduce man-animal conflict. Programmes like ‘The Living with Leopards programme’, need to be emulated. More power needs to be given to the local communities.
The type of crops too have to be changed. In Karnataka, the government has advised farmers to plant crops that elephants don’t like eating, such as chillies, lemons and ginger. Digging trenches and setting up alarm systems to warn people when elephants are nearby could help. Railway track fencing can check the elephants entering human settlements. It is costly proposition though.
Raising the compensation is fine, but such ad-hocism isn’t advisable in the long run. The problem has to be approached professionally and at the source. Apart from rescue units, correctional facilities, veterinarians, tranquilizing guns and well-equipped staff, there is an urgent need to go to the root of it all – human encroachment on wildlife. It needs to be tackled on a war-footing.
The writer is a freelancer who specialises inlifestyle and wellness issues.