Ping! Elephants ahead: reducing human-elephant conflict, one SMS at a time
5th March 2019
In India,
few animals carry the kind of cultural symbolism like elephants do.
Human-elephant interaction boasts a rich history dating back centuries.
It is but natural that such a long association would also have
encounters that do not end happily.
Nowhere is this more
apparent than in Hassan in Karnataka, the state which is home to
India’s largest population of Asian elephants. The Hassan region,
however, has been beset by human-elephant conflicts for years with a
number of these encounters resulting in fatalities. But, thanks to
resilient conservation efforts and smart application of technology in
recent months, Hassan could soon be at peace with its elephants.
Hassan
and nearby districts sit at the edges of India’s iconic Western Ghats,
a UNESCO World Heritage Site and global biodiversity hotspot which
accounts for about 60 percent of Karnataka’s forest area. A fertile
landscape comprising fragmented forest patches, coffee plantations and
paddy fields, Hassan offers a rich and conducive topographical mosaic
for elephants, a habitat generalist species known for travelling long
distances.
Read
full story here
|
