On 6 April 2018, the Supreme Court began the final hearing in the matter of A Rangarajan & Ors v Union of India & Ors tagged with several related cases on the issue of securing elephant corridors across India.
Pleadings are expected to continue over the upcoming four weeks, and the bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta is set to decide on the writ petition pertaining to wildlife corridors for our national heritage animal.
Corridors Shrinking Every Year
Elephant corridors are linear strips of land which link larger elephant habitats, so that the animals can move from one habitat to another during their annual migrations and in search of food and water in the summer months.
These corridors are crucial for the survival and protection of the species. In 2017, The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), in its extensive publication ‘Right of Passage’, conducted a study on a total of 101 elephant corridors in India, as opposed to the 88 corridors which the WTI had earlier identified in 2005.
The data indicates a drastic decline in the protection offered to the Indian elephant, as the corridors are affected by agricultural activity, mining, highways and railroads.
As elephants perish due to conflict and industrial mortality, civil society has resorted to approaching the judiciary for stringent directions to secure the corridors.
The Supreme Court, in the hearing on 6 April, emphasised the importance of elephant corridors, giving the Central government 10 days to provide a solution to ensure the free movement of elephants in these corridors.
The Court mentioned that the elephant population had drastically reduced due to poaching by smuggler Veerappan, and although the numbers had improved after his death, elephants continue to face threats from other factors such as collisions with trains in their habitats.
The matter was previously heard by a CJI-led bench, where the petitioners had suggested that the government implement a mechanism to tackle man-animal conflict, and to reduce roadkill on highways and railroads.
Elephants in Dire Straits in Rajaji National Park
The Supreme Court in the current case has specifically highlighted the elephant corridors in the Rajaji National Park, which would hopefully expose the dire situation relating to elephant mortality around the national park.
A study situated in Rajaji, published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin in as early as 2001, showed that train accidents and electrocutions were responsible for over 65 percent of elephant deaths between 1992 and 2000, and that trains were running 24 times daily through the Chilla-Motichur corridor, with train accidents responsible for over 70 percent of elephant mortality caused by human interference.
The NGT, when previously adjudicating on elephant corridors in Rajaji, has passed orders against the chief conservator of forests, prohibiting the construction of a wall in the national park which would have caused an obstruction to an elephant corridor, holding that such a wall was in prohibition of the Forest Conservation Act (Social Action for Forest & Environment (SAFE) v Union of India & Ors, 2014).
Laws Exist, We Just Need to Use Them
There has been significant jurisprudence already established by the higher judiciary and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) with respect to safeguarding elephant corridors.
In a detailed judgment in the case of Rohit Chaudhary v The Union of India & Ors in 2015, the NGT was deciding on the legality of the environmental clearance given to the construction of the Numaligarh refinery in Assam.
The petitioners provided evidence that the illegal walls of the refinery were obstructing an elephant corridor and had led to the death of an elephant. The respondents argued that elephant corridors have no legal sanction under the Wildlife Protection Act as such.
However, the NGT relied on communications by the district forest officer which had mentioned the importance of the area for elephant migration, and a notification by the Assam government in 1999, under the Assam Forest Regulation of 1891 which had listed the area as a regular migratory route of elephants.
The NGT held that “[the] elephant corridors have to be preserved to protect their habitats from fragmentation. They are of prime importance for migration of elephants from one habitat to another.”
With an Eye to Forest Communities
The discussion on protecting elephant corridors is deeply entrenched within forest rights law, and it is imperative that the rights of vulnerable communities who depend on the forest are not compromised in the interest of safeguarding the corridors.
Citizens who have historically inhabited India’s forests have a right to reside in those areas and it is the duty of the government to ensure that they can subsist without disruption, and if they are to be displaced, they be highly compensated and reasonably rehabilitated.
Acquisition of traditionally held forest land for corridors should not, under any circumstances, leave the communities bereft of their rights under Section 3 of the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
While poaching continues to be threat to wild elephants as the males are killed for their tusks, skewing the demographics of the population and directly affecting their gene pool, the lack of safe corridors remains the primary threat to elephants.
In a response to an unstarred question by Kamla Devi Paatle in the Lok Sabha in 2015, the then Minister for Environment and Forests revealed that the government had no plans to establish additional elephant reserves or corridors in India.
As the latest data by WTI shows, there are 23 new identified corridors which require immediate attention, and it is crucial that the Central Government is mandated to carry out this task in a time-bound manner, and especially introduce stringent measures to prevent the death of elephants at railroads and highways.
The term ‘corridor’ conjures up an image of a narrow space to confine and regulate movement in an orderly fashion.
However, elephants’ movements are guided by ancient routes which do not fit in to the perfunctory spaces that they are allotted in modern India, and we hope that the Supreme Court in deciding the current case directs the Centre to implement a holistic network of protected areas which focuses on broad connectivity.
(Mrinalini Shinde is a researcher in comparative environmental law at the University of Cologne, with a focus on wildlife law. She has previously worked as an advocate at the National Green Tribunal in India. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same)
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