Elephant Corridor Plan Mooted

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Forest Department had sought comments and suggestions from the members of the public on the draft elephant corridor plan for the State that has been uploaded to its web portal: https://forests.tn.gov.in/tn-forest-dept-publications.

An official press release on Monday said Tamil Nadu had a rich forest area in Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats that supported a good population of elephants.

‘In the recent elephant census conducted in 2023, it was estimated that 2961 no elephants were found in Tamil Nadu. Because of recent development and agriculture interventions, the habitat continuity of Forests for Elephants has been disconnected and it has created disturbances to the elephant corridors, which elephants have been using for ages,’ it said

As a result, Human-Elephant Conflict incidences have increased in the last decade. It was proposed to prepare an Elephant corridor plan to protect the elephant habitat effectively. Considering this necessity Tamil Nadu Government has formed a special committee to prepare a corridor plan, it said, adding accordingly the forest department had drafted the plan for the State.