An Elephant Eden, at Last!
By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem
The announcement by our Forest Minister a few days ago, that the State Government is seriously thinking of establishing a ‘Soft Release Centre’ for elephants that stray out of our forests and aggravate the man-animal conflict, has made some very interesting front page news.
And, it comes as a whiff of fresh air, especially to the thousands of families, like mine, that dwell on the fringes of the forest areas of the Malnad districts of our State.
It certainly means a lot to us because it is very likely to put an end to tragic incidents of conflict with wild animals, which have been becoming increasingly common in the recent past. The number of people dying or getting seriously injured in such encounters has been steadily increasing over the last ten years, which is very distressing.
The last two years in particular have recorded the highest number of fatalities. Whether this is due to humans encroaching upon animal territory or the other way around, has been the subject of much debate and what seems right or wrong to you, depends on whether you stand with the forest denizens or with the fringe-of-the-forest dwellers.
But what is immediately necessary is to reduce if not completely eliminate such incidents of man animal-conflict and bring in some lasting peace. The Government has been trying various strategies to mitigate this problem but without much success and it is now under increasing pressure to do something long-lasting about it.
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