A few many years in the past, within the coronary heart of Uttarakhand’s Jim Corbett Nationwide Park, a youth may very well be seen hiding excessive up in one of many watch towers. Anybody passing by would marvel concerning the uncommon spot he had picked.
However the reply lay in an amusing scene; each time the younger boy tried to make his means out of the tower, an elephant (camouflaged by the thicket of bushes) would seem and cost at him. And as soon as once more, the boy would ascend the watch tower and wait.
It took all of 4 hours earlier than the elephant determined to make a transfer and the youth lastly descended the watch tower, aid colouring his face.
The boy on this story was a younger Vivek Menon, who’s now the co-founder of Wildlife Belief of India — an organisation devoted to the preservation and safety of untamed habitats. This tryst with the elephant left an indelible mark on Menon’s thoughts. “It made me perceive the animal’s energy,” he smiles, fast so as to add, nonetheless, that his love for the wild and nature predates this incident.
There isn’t a singular story that served as inspiration to develop into a conservationist, Menon insists. However coax him a little bit, and he says genetics did play its function — “I’m from Kerala, the land of elephants” — as did childhood treks. “These have been treks to the Himalayas throughout my college days,” Menon explains. “It could be proper to say that I took to animals and birds the second I used to be uncovered to them.”
At residence, Menon’s room resembled an animal shelter. Birds and small animals rescued from the wild and predatory fingers discovered a protected area. “I assumed I used to be doing them [the animals] good by bringing them residence,” he justifies. Immediately, at 56, the conservationist’s work is an extension of that very same goodwill.
Such was his love for nature that when he digressed from the profession plans his father had for him — a profession in car engineering — and adopted his coronary heart all the best way to the zoology laboratory, nobody was shocked.
What number of hours I’ve spent watching younger bulls playfully check their energy, their nascent ivories by no means inflicting hurt, their trunks loosely entwined & ears aflap whereas muscle and sinew grind towards the opposite. These younger mock-battles practice them for later grownup life! pic.twitter.com/Em9soIlOnY— Vivek Menon (@vivek4wild) June 18, 2024
‘I wished to do one thing regarding animals’
Query: Is there a greater strategy to interview a conservationist than reaching him by means of a Zoom name whereas he’s within the coronary heart of a South African jungle?
Completely not; simply what is required so as to add essence to the story.
Menon’s pleasure was palpable. As senior advisor to the ‘Worldwide Fund for Animal Welfare’ for years now, he was within the Southern African nation helping in an operation that concerned radio collaring elephants — a course of during which a collar with an connected radio transmitter is placed on an animal in order that its actions in its pure habitat will be remotely monitored.
The truth is, as he jokingly provides, my interview name is interrupting one thing essential that he’d in any other case be doing — watching 150 elephants towards the setting solar in Zimbabwe.
Anybody who has watched Menon round elephants would testify that the 2 share a bond. He understands them. And the connection is reciprocal.
Substantial proof of his love for the wild lies within the 5 organisations that he has created — TRAFFIC India — a wildlife commerce monitoring community; NGO Srishti — an organisation based to guard the surroundings in Delhi; Delhi Fowl Membership; Venu Menon Animal Allies Basis; and Wildlife Belief of India (WTI).
Image a world the place commerce in wild crops and animals is managed at sustainable ranges with out damaging the integrity of ecological methods.
That is what TRAFFIC India has tried to do for the reason that outset. Menon who co-founded this wildlife commerce monitoring community together with his colleague and legendary conservationist Ashok Kumar, emphasises the organisation’s resolve to bust poaching amid different unlawful actions. The organisation’s work additionally extends to the struggle towards unlawful worldwide ivory commerce. Menon’s work earned him the RG Samsara Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.
Whereas activism is vital, this biologist believes in shedding an equal highlight on creating impression by means of coverage frameworks. As Chair of the Asian Elephant Specialist Group for the IUCN (Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature) for the previous 12 years, Menon elaborates on the character of his work in advising numerous governments on “doing issues proper for elephants”.
“This consists of bringing out scientific work, tips, and manuals. It additionally consists of planning linear infrastructure; highways, railways, highway passes, and energy strains in such a means that the elephants are allowed to move,” he notes.
This segues into the subject of figuring out and defending elephant corridors, a brainchild of the Wildlife Belief of India.
With the overarching aim being to safe a ‘ceremony of passage’ for huge mammals, WTI together with the Authorities of India and prime scientists have recognized and surveyed 101 such purposeful corridors throughout 11 states for the 29,000 odd Asian Elephants in India.
From a spare bed room mission to an outstanding belief
In line with a 2023 examine within the Journal of Wildlife and Biodiversity, corridors are quick strips of forests that hyperlink two bigger components of the forest; like a “steady two-dimensional panorama construction that interconnects two or extra beforehand linked areas of animal habitats”. These allow the animals to disperse, cut back their danger of separation and make habitat rehabilitation simpler.
The examine explored how anthropogenic stress, the event of roads and railways, and hydroelectric tasks are hampering these corridors. The issue is compounded by a number of forests being changed into croplands by the farming neighborhood.
For 25 years, WTI has tried to raised the narrative for wildlife throughout species. Their impression is resounding — campaigning for the whale shark to be made the primary fish to be protected below the Wildlife (Safety) Act, 1972, in India, exposing the unlawful mongoose hairbrush commerce, helping within the seizure of over 275 wildlife articles together with tiger bones and bear bile, and the inception of the pangolin trafficking mission that makes an attempt to curb unlawful commerce of the species.
The success of the organisation masks its humble beginnings. However Vivek Menon hasn’t forgotten these. “We began as a staff of three individuals in a spare room of my home. Every of us invested Rs 5,000,” he smiles. The funding was secondary. Ardour was what drove WTI to success.
Menon has a chunk of recommendation that he believes will go a good distance in guaranteeing a greater place for wildlife, together with elephants, on the planet.
Agency anti-poaching insurance policies
Having spent the higher a part of his life as a conservationist coaching Indian forest guards, rangers, and paramilitary forces on anti-poaching actions and smuggling strategies, Menon has witnessed the community shut up. However he insists that, as within the case of any criminality, there isn’t a means of curbing it utterly. “One can solely reduce it,” he says.
To this finish, Menon says the forest guards are sometimes the primary line of defence to cease unlawful commerce. “They need to be educated in anti-poaching.” He provides that in circumstances of the animal being poached regardless of precautionary measures, the border workers needs to be educated to make sure that smuggling of ivory will not be occurring.
Decreasing man-animal battle
Crop raiding and property destruction are the prime components that trigger elephant-human battle, in accordance with the Worldwide Fund for Animal Welfare. The examine went on so as to add that in India, 100 elephants die yearly from battle with people.
The issue, says Menon, is exacerbated by lack of area. “An elephant is a giant, clever social nomad. It has to maneuver; it has to take action in teams; and it’s clever. No matter stands in its means it should destroy to maneuver. One has to respect it and provides it area,” he notes.
Create elephant corridors
In an ideal world, the habitats of elephants are contiguous, Menon factors out. “Elephants would be capable of transfer from the Himalayas to the South of India.” However he provides that the rationale that is now not doable is as a result of the mammals now share the bottom with individuals and their settlements.
Elaborating on WTI’s strategy to demarcate the elephant corridors and push for them to be declared as protected zones, Menon says, they relied on elephant footpaths. “We mapped these and confirmed it in a publication, explaining why they have been integral items of land that related with the totally different habitats. We delineated these on paper, asking the Authorities to guard these elephant corridors.”
Sharing the learnings they’d through the mission, Menon says the safety of elephant corridors will be performed in 4 methods.
The primary mannequin, he says, is the neighborhood mannequin within the Northeast, which has been on for the previous 20 years. “This mannequin focuses on land being saved apart by the neighborhood for elephants to maneuver. It additionally includes rewarding the neighborhood with some advantages,” Menon shares.
The second mannequin is pushing the Authorities to accumulate land and conduct linear infrastructure mitigations. The third, he says, is to create a neighborhood of individuals who’re educated in retaining a watch out for elephant actions. “As an example, in Kaziranga, there are teams of younger boys who’re on alert. They cease automobiles to permit the elephants to cross.”
The fourth, he provides, is to relocate villages. This “last-ditch effort” is just resorted to in areas the place individuals have settled proper in the course of elephant corridors and elephants are killing them and never letting crops develop, he shares.
Rescue and rehabilitation
Twenty years in the past when Menon and his staff began the rescue and rehabilitation of orphan elephant calves to reintroduce them into the wild, individuals discouraged the concept. However the conservationist factors to the 50 % success charge they’ve achieved as a nod to their persistence.
Placing insurance policies in place
In 2001, Menon obtained the Whitley Award for a mission specializing in ‘Monitoring of Elephant Poaching and Ivory Commerce in India and Asia’. Reaching this zenith of excellence gave super backing to his work in placing wildlife corridors on the map.
In 2020, when India’s Supreme Court docket earmarked the Sigur Plateau — which sees the motion of round 6,300 Asiatic Elephants — as an elephant hall, Whitley Fund for Nature notes how the apex courtroom used Menon’s proof of the advantages to each wildlife and folks. Menon’s work has created ripples; shaping the crux of wildlife insurance policies as we communicate.
I can sit and hearken to him for hours. However I do know he has someplace to be; I’m retaining 100 and fifty of his jungle associates ready for him.
“However one final query earlier than you go,” I say, unable to cease myself.
“What do you see in them that connects you to them?”
“They’re close to individuals, in the event you take a look at them by way of conscience, reminiscence, and mind. They’re similar to us. They won’t be capable of perceive my phrases or my language. However they perceive me in different methods,” he says, earlier than he concludes our dialog to move to the place the place he feels most at residence — amid the elephants.
Sources
Elephant Hall loss resulting from anthropogenic stress – a examine of change in forest cowl utilizing satellite tv for pc knowledge within the Sonitpur District, Assam, India by Journal of Wildlife and Biodiversity, Printed on 7 June 2022.
Human-elephant battle: What it’s and why it’s a serious risk by IFAW, Printed on 20 July 2023.
Monitoring of elephant poaching and ivory commerce, India and Asia by Whitley Fund for Nature.
Edited by Pranita Bhat.
