India: Centre announces elephant-proof walls after protests rock Wayanad over third elephant attack death

Amid rising man-wildlife conflict in the Indian state of Kerala, the Union government on Thursday announcedvarious measures to curb the situation, including building a separate site for elephants with proof fences and walls.

The situation of conflict between locals and elephants in the southern state, especially in the Wayanad district has taken a serious turn, escalating the matter to political confrontation.

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The Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav accused the state government and local representative of ignoring the ground situation that led to increased cases of man-animal conflict in the region.

Rising elephant deaths in Kerala’s Wayanad led to protests

‘This is rather unfortunate and has led to people losing lives,” said Yadav in a press meet while pointing out the State government’s failure to mitigate the situation. He said creating “site-specific elephant-proof fences/walls” is one way to deal with such a situation, which can also be utilised in other southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in future.

The point to be noted is that Wayand is a Lok Sabha parliamentary constituency of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Yadav recently visited the district after Gandhi met the family members of a forest department watcher who became the victim of a wild elephant in Wayanad.

After Ajeesh Josephwas trampled to death by a wild elephant, protests rocked Wayanad as angry residents blamed authorities for failing to protect them from wild animal attacks. Joseph’s demise was the second such death in the district in three weeks.

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Due to this, Rahul Gandhi also abruptly halted his ‘Bharay Jodo Nyay Yatra’ (Unite India Justice March) going on in Uttar Pradesh and paid a visit to the deceased’s family in Wayanad last week.

Soon, Union minister Yadav also visited the region and announced on Thursday that the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore will be developed as a Centre for hand-holding Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu on mitigation of human-wildlife conflicts.

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Residents were adamant that they wanted strong boundary walls, solar-powered fencing, elephant-proof trenches and early warning systems to keep wild elephants at bay. The creation of proper wildlife corridors was also among the demands and was promised by the authorities in the past.

“Regarding the permission for capturing, translocating or human-wildlife conflicts, the minister informed that Section 11 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 empowers the State Chief Wildlife Warden to take such actions required to manage such conflicts," said an official.

(With inputs from agencies)