WORLD ELEPHANT DAY 12 August – Check Aims, Objectives & Laws and Conventions

Hello dear aspirants,

You must have come across viral videos of elephants gatecrashing human colonies or incidents of elephant cruelty and harassment on various social media platforms time and again. Elephants are killed or held in captivity under worse conditions for various purposes across the world. 

In order to break this cycle of violence against them, we celebrate World Elephant Day on 12th of August every year.  

About World Elephant Day

• World Elephant Day was co-founded on August 12, 2012, by two Canadian filmmakers Patricia Sims & Michael Clark with Elephant Reintroduction Foundation Thailand. 
• It is the banner under which various organizations and individuals can conduct campaigns on the issues threatening elephants across borders and political lines. 

Aims and Objectives:

• To sensitise people about issues like ill treatment of captive elephants, against the illegal poaching, trade of the jumbos for ivory, loss of habitat, etc.,
• To help protect them for maintaining the biodiversity of rainforests, 
• To raise awareness about the plight of the elephants in the wild while also finding out the ways to protect them.

ELEPHANT CONSERVATION IN INDIA:

India formally adopted the “World Elephant Day” on 12 August 2016 to help conserve elephants in India and improve their welfare.

Indian Government has undertaken various steps like Project Elephant, ‘Haathi Hamara Saathi’, etc. to protect elephants from time to time. 

It also launched a beta version of the national portal on human-elephant conflict called ‘Surakhsya’. 

Let us discuss these measures at length to know more about them.

Laws and Conventions:

• The elephant is a protected animal under India’s wildlife laws. 
• In 2010, the central government declared the elephant an animal of national heritage to intensify measures for its protection.
• They are included in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). 
• The Asian elephant is granted the highest protection, legally, and as a Schedule I protected species of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. There is an absolute prohibition on the poaching, trafficking and trading of elephants, inviting a hefty fine and incarceration of up to 7 years and a minimum fine of 25000 INR.

Project Elephant:

• The Government of India established Project Elephant under the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MOEFCC) to monitor and regulate the welfare of both wild and captive elephants. 
• Project Elephant was established in 1992 with the aim of providing technical assistance to the protection and management of the population of wild elephants in India.
• The objectives of the project are:

1. Protection of Elephants, Elephant Corridors and their Habitats;
2. Prevention of Man-Animal Conflicts; and
3. Ensuring the welfare of domesticated elephants.

• This strategy is mainly implemented in 16 states or union territories in the country which include Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
• The central government provides technical and financial help to these states to carry out and achieve the goals of project elephant.
• Funds are also provided for the purpose of the census, training of field officials etc.
• Project Elephant is considered a success in the view of many conservationists.

Elephant Corridors:

• Elephant Corridors are narrow strips of forested lands which act as a bridge to larger elephant habitats. This passage is essential for the movement of the elephants and to enhance the survival rate of the species in the wild. 
• The National Green Tribunal ruled that elephants have the first right on the forests in the case of Rohit Chaudhary vs. Union of India & Ors. (2016) . It ordered the demolition of a boundary wall in the middle of an elephant corridor in Assam’s Deopahar Reserve Forest. 
• Further, it was ruled that no power fencing could be erected on the elephant corridors. This judgment was upheld by the Supreme Court.
• The major threat to these corridors is the loss of habitat due to fragmentation of forests and other protected areas. The fragmentation is due to an increase in human activities and industrialization, which includes mining activities. 
• The Supreme Court ordered a ban on all kinds of mining and related activities along the Kaziranga National Park area, in the case of In Re: T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad vs. Union of India & Ors. (2019) 
• The Supreme Court in the case of A. Rangarajan vs. Union of India (2018), passed an order to shut down 27 resorts and hotels that were illegally built on the Nilgiris Elephant Corridors without permission. 
• There are approximately 88 elephant corridors in India. Following is a location wise list of elephant corridors in India:

Elephant Task Force (ETF):

• The Union government constituted an Elephant Task Force (ETF) in 2010 under the leadership of historian Mahesh Rangarajan to review the existing policy of elephant conservation in India and formulate future interventions along the lines of the Tiger Task Force.
• It recommended various pragmatic solutions to deal with the atrocities perpetrated against elephants. 
• As per one of the ETF recommendations, a proposed National Elephant Conservation Authority (NECA) on the lines with NTCA is under process.

Apart from the project, there are other programs that have been implemented for the protection of elephants in India like:

• Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants Program (MIKE)

• This program began in 2003 in South Asia under CITES by resolution 10.10. There are approximately 45 countries across the world which are included in the program.
• The aim is to provide information to the elephant range countries needed for making proper arrangements and enforcement decisions. 
• It also promotes the expansion of the institutional capacity for a long term conservation and management of the elephants.
• The objectives of the program are to measure the rate of illegal poaching of elephants, to track changes in the elephant population, and collection of data on a monthly basis from all MIKE sites.

• ‘Haathi Mere Saathi’ Campaign

• This campaign was launched by the Ministry of Environment and Forest in collaboration with Wildlife Trust of India. 
• The campaign was launched in 2011 at the Elephant-8 ministerial meeting held in Delhi. The countries that were a part of the Elephant-8 ministerial meeting were Kenya, Srilanka, Botswana, Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Indonesia, Thailand, and India.
• The aim is to improve the protection, conservation and welfare of elephants in India.
• The objective of the campaign is to spread public awareness and for developing friendship and companionship between the local public and elephants. 
• It also aims to set up Gajah Centres in elephant landscapes across the country, to spread awareness about their plights and invoke public participation. The mascot of the campaign is Gaju. 

ELEPHANT RESERVES IN INDIA:

There are 30 notified Elephant Reserves (ERs) in the country spread over 15 states. Following is a zone-wise list of these reserves in various states:

Along with this, Joint advisories have been issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and Ministry of Railways (MoRs) to all the concerned states to avoid deaths of elephants by speeding trains.

So, ‘World Elephant Day’ is of a huge importance to India and various steps have been taken so far to conserve and protect our elephants as discussed above.

Hope this article helped you to understand the significance of ‘World Elephant Day’ better.

Thank you!