Storm in a teacup: pro-active management strategies to mitigate human-elephant conflict in the Anamalais, south India
In India, Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) distribution overlaps extensively with human habitation, leading to exceptionally high rates of human-elephant conflict, including crop and property damage by elephants, and loss of lives on both sides. Given the high-risk nature of this interaction, we sought to understand and help resolve human-elephant conflict in a model landscape, the Valparai plateau, in the Ānamalais, Western Ghats. The plateau is a matrix of tea-coffee-eucalyptus plantations interspersed with rainforest fragments, annually supporting ~120 elephants and the livelihood of ~70,000 people. Our long-term study enabled us to understand elephant movements and identify factors influencing the incidents of human death and property damage by elephants between 2002 and 2021. A closer examination of the nature of human deaths revealed that in 73% of incidents (36 of 49 cases) people were unaware of the presence of elephants. This prompted us to implement ‘early warning systems’ (TV crawls, bulk SMS and call alerts to people's mobile phones, and GSM-based alert beacons in strategic locations), involving local stakeholders, to warn people of elephants, beginning in 2004. Property damage, mainly in the form of damages by elephants to buildings that store food grains, peaked between October-February every year. Our constant interactions with stakeholders helped to adopt better food grain storage practices, initiate Rapid Response teams by the Tamil Nadu Forest Department, and enabled coordinated efforts with forest department staff for better protection of property and people from elephants. These collective efforts resulted in a decline in human death incidents from an average of three persons/year (1994-2002) to one person/year for a 19-year period between 2003 and 2021. Additionally, property damage reduced by more than 50% between 2011 and 2021. Our study suggests that human-elephant conflict management based on scientific research and joint efforts of stakeholders could promote human-elephant coexistence in altered landscapes.
