Bhubaneswar, Aug 12 (PTI) Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on Saturday said active participation with local communities is the key to steering elephant conservation to new heights.

Addressing a gathering here on the occasion of World Elephant Day, he said with the largest population of wild Asian elephants, India is the mainstay for the long-term conservation of the species.

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“The Centre is committed to reconciling human welfare and elephant conservation. Active participation with local communities is the key to steering elephant conservation to new heights,” the minister said.

Yadav highlighted the efforts taken by various ministries of the central government, state forest departments, the Wildlife Institute of India and others to address the critical issue of railway-related elephant collisions.

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“As part of these efforts, about 110 critical stretches across the railway network in the country that pass through elephant habitats have been identified,” Yadav said adding that in these areas, multipronged strategies are planned to minimise deaths of the pachyderms due to collision of trains.

He said in these locations measures such as building underpasses, clearing vegetation along the tracks to increase visibility for the loco pilots to avoid collisions, provisioning ramps, and others will also be taken up.

Yadav also mentioned that the Ministry of Railways is contemplating to replicate the technology-based intrusion detection system along the tracks in Odisha and other states.

He also highlighted the novel initiative taken by the Ministry to map the genotype of all captive elephants in the country to prevent trafficking of elephants.

The minister said that for the first time, his ministry has embarked on carrying out management effectiveness and evaluation of the elephant reserves across the country.

He said four elephant reserves across four elephant-bearing regions of the country have been identified for piloting the process of managing effective evaluation for the reserves.

“This will be a major step forward in standardising and propagating best practices among the elephant reserves. The elephant reserve network in the country has increased from 76,508 sq km to 80,777 sq km comprising 33 Elephant Reserves during the last two years,” the minister said.

On the occasion, Yadav also interacted with the staff who are at the forefront of managing human-elephant conflict.

As part of the World Elephant Day celebrations, he released the report on the Elephant Corridors of India prepared by Project Elephant.

The Minister conferred the Gaj Gaurav Award to several people and agencies for their exemplary contributions to the field of elephant conservation and management.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)