BHUBANESWAR: A new study has urged that declaring the entire coal belt of Angul district for mining use must be reconsidered.
Wildlife Institute of India (WII) researchers S Karthy and GV Gopi carried out the study to understand the status of elephants in coal mine landscape using geospatial methods.
A snippet of the report ‘Status of Management of Elephants in Coal Mine Landscape of Odisha’ cautioned that operating inactive coal mines would result in destruction of about 390 sq km of forest Angul forest division.
Employing Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) approach to determine the suitable elephant landscape in the division, the study found that most of the habitat utilised by the pachyderms in the region fall under the proposed coal blocks.
“There are already operational coal mines in Angul division which hinder the movement of the elephants. If all the inactive coal mines come into operation, it would lead to destruction of about 390 sq km forest in the protected area,” it stated.
The report sought construction of adequate overpasses and underpasses in the southern part and stressed the importance of managing habitat outside protected areas and enforcing stringent environmental framework.