Centre to frame regional action plans to promote human-elephant coexistence in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: In an effort to address the growing human-elephant conflict in the country, the Centre has decided to prepare regional action plans for different landscapes to strengthen elephant conservation and promote peaceful coexistence.

These action plans will help states in getting support through the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) at the national-level to step up their protection measures.

One regional action plan is already inthe final stage for the southern India landscape that holds the largest population of elephants in the country, said additional director general (ADG) Forests-cum-Project Elephant director in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) Ramesh Kumar Pandey on Thursday.

Pandey, who was in the state to attend the international workshop on ‘Human-Elephant Conflict: Challenges and Way Forward’, said though there have been calls for having a national action plan for the elephants in the country, it will be of no use to have such a plan, considering the diverse requirements of differentOn the occasion, the Project Elephant director stressed immediate formulation of the regional action plan for the eastcentral landscape considering the trans-boundary movement of the pachyderms in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

He expressed concern over the fact that despite holding just about 10 per cent of India’s total elephant population, the east-central landscape was reporting over 50 per cent of the overall human-elephant conflict in the country.The state of Odisha has unfortunately remained on top among all in both elephant deaths and human casualties in wild animal attack, Pandey stated.

“If the regional action plan is framed, it will enable the states of the landscape to get good support from the government of India, both technically and financially,” he