World Elephant Day: Union Min Prakash Javadekar launches portal on human-elephant conflict

Union Minister for Environment and Forest Prakash Javadekar on Monday released a document on Best Practices and launched a portal on Human-Elephant Conflict called 'Surakhsya'. India is committed to the cause of saving elephants and other animals and is working towards robust, practical and cost effective solutions to end the human-animal conflict, Javadekar said on the eve of the day. World Elephant Day, is celebrated every year on August 12 to create awareness among people on elephant conservation.

The Union Minisater said that efforts are in full swing to provide food and water to the animals in the forests itself to deal with the increasing cases of human-animal conflict. He also stressed on the need for capacity building and training of forest staff. 

'Let us reaffirm this bond of coexistence with elephants'

On the occasion of 'World Elephant Day' the environment minister reaffirmed to protect the bond of coexistence with 'Haathi Hamaara Saathi campaign', a government of India initiative to protect the elephants.

READ | Aaditya Thackeray writes to Env Min Javadekar on EID draft; wants federal environmentalism

Government has also taken initiative of fodder and water augmentation in forest areas by using the LiDAR technology so that animals will get food and water in forest area and will not come outside, he added. Minister of State for Environment and Forest Babul Supriyo who was also present at the launch said, it is a moment of pride that India is having 60 percent of Global population of Asian Elephants. "Killing of innocent animals will not be tolerated by the government", he said.
 
READ | Jairam Ramesh writes to Javadekar, says Draft EIA Notification flawed

About the portal SURAKHSYA

The National Portal on Human-Elephant conflict “SURAKHSYA” launched by the Union Minister aims to collect real-time information and will also manage conflicts on a real-time basis. The portal will help to set data collection protocols, data visualization tools and data transmission pipelines.

READ | 'Unnecessary & premature': Javadekar hits back at Rahul Gandhi on EIA; recalls UPA days

More than 60 per cent of elephant population is in India

Asian elephants are listed as 'Endangered' on the IUCN Red List of threatened species, according to the release by the Ministry of Environment. This has been done most of the range states except India, have lost their viable elephant populations due to loss of habitats & poaching etc, the release said.  The current population estimates indicate that there are about 50,000 -60000 Asian elephants in the world. More than 60 per cent of the population is held in India.

The Indian Elephant has also been listed in the Appendix I of the Convention of the Migratory species in the recently concluded Conference of Parties of CMS 13 at Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat in February 2020, according to the release. Elephant are considered as the Natural Heritage Animal of India.

READ | Rahul Gandhi's objections to draft EIA 'unnecessary and premature': Javadekar