Introduction
There are about 17,000 to 24,000 elephants in the wild in India spread
over five distinct regions. Within these five regions, the
elephant populations are split into even smaller populations. Many of
these Asian elephant populations are highly threatened with loss of
habitat, elephant human conflict and poaching of males for ivory. Though
poaching has been of immediate concern for some of the populations,
the most important threat has been and will continue to be habitat loss
and degradation all over the elephant range in India and Asia.
Elephants are large-bodied animals, having complex family lives and are wide ranging in search of food and other resources like water, etc. Each elephant family groups uses an area called the home range (ranging from 200 square km to 800 sq km) and they show very high fidelity and use the various portions of their home range in the different seasons. For example, Kiruba (A female aged 17-20 years) and her family use the different portions of the their home range (about 200 sq km) in Rajaji National Park (shown below).
However, in many places the traditional routes they use while moving from one part of their home range to another part have been blocked due to developmental projects like dams, canals, mines and human encroachments. This causes an enormous disruption of their normal life, behavior and ecology.
 Villagers collecting and taking back Bhabar grass for rope weaving
Due to recent awareness of the value of wildlife and the pressure from the general public, loss of habitat to developmental projects has slowed down considerably, yet the elephant habitat is still under assault from people living in and around the park. The reason for this is the large human population. There are more than 900 million people in India and the population is still growing at about 1.5 to 2 percent per year. This is equal to three times the population of the United States living within one-fourth the land mass. Many of the people living in and around elephant habitats depend on the forests for firewood, minor forest produce, and fodder for their cattle. Most of the people are sensitive to their environment and would like to reduce their dependency on the forests and let the elephants live in peace. But they lack the skills, education and the resources needed to make that change. The elephants have already been pushed to small forested habitats, denied access to traditional portions of their home ranges.
 The Elephant Habitat Program's main objective is to help in creating undisturbed habitat for young bulls and family groups such as the ones seen in this picture.
The Habitat Program is the first international program that has been started with objective of slowing down habitat degradation and freeing available habitats of disturbance from humans so elephants can lead normal lives. The Habitat Program has been started with the intention of helping elephants and we believe that by helping people we help elephants. We at the Habitat Program look at elephants as a gentle fellow beings who deserve to lead normal lives just as much as we do, especially considering their highly developed social and family bonds that is almost similar to human families in may ways.
The Habitat Program plans to work with people such as these to educate them and teach them skills for alternative jobs and the key to a better life. This will help in reducing pressure and disturbance of the elephant habitats.
Back to beginning of Asia Habitat Program
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