Locals Turned Wildlife Protectors Are Safeguarding 101 Corridors To Help Elephants Move Safely |
S P Pandey vividly remembers the night he received a call informing him about a commotion that had ensued near the local river in the Dooars region, a critically important elephant corridor in West Bengal. “The villagers were trying to drive away two elephants on the banks of the river with crackers and shouting,” Pandey explains.
But just as he and his response team reached the site, they were distracted by “boulders bobbing up and down in the water”.
Pandey is the founder of SPOAR (Society for Protecting Ophiofauna and Animal Rights), which collaborates with forest officials, gram panchayats (village governing bodies), and tea estate owners to support human-wildlife coexistence.
Fascination is still rife in Pandey’s voice as he recalls, “While the two elephants were occupying the attention of the village people, a herd of 30 elephants was making its way down the river, trying to safely cross to the other side. Look at how smart these animals are.”
This wasn’t the first time the school teacher had a front row seat to the animal's ingenuity. His anecdote contextualises the interlinked lives and habits of the ‘endangered’ Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). Poaching, illegal trade, human-elephant conflict, and habitat loss could be blamed for a decline in the species’ numbers, and communities living along elephant territories often bear the brunt of this disruption.
But organisations like SPOAR are attempting to alleviate the pressures on this species. In 2018, Pandey was recognised as a Green Corridor Champion (GCC) by the Wildlife Trust of India.
As Upasana Ganguly, who heads the ‘Right of Passage’ project at Wildlife Trust of India, explains, the Green Corridor Champions are locals closely involved in protecting elephant corridors........