A road, railway line, power cable or farm can be more than an obstruction in an elephant’s path. Across South India, changes to the landscape are increasingly disrupting traditional elephant movement routes, pushing animals closer to human settlements and farms and raising the risk of deaths on both sides.
Against this backdrop, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been brought under a five-year regional action plan with a proposed outlay of ₹999.87 crore to address human-elephant conflict (HEC) through habitat protection, safer infrastructure, early warning systems, community participation and scientific monitoring.
The Regional Action Plan for Comprehensive Understanding and Management of Human-Elephant Conflict in South India, prepared by the Project Elephant Division of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), was unveiled in Visakhapatnam on World Elephant Day.
The plan takes a landscape-level approach, identifying elephant movement routes, bottlenecks, recurring conflict hotspots and measures that can prevent encounters before they occur.
Karnataka has the largest estimated elephant population among the four states, with 6,395 elephants in 2023, followed by Tamil Nadu with 2,961, Kerala with 1,920 and Andhra Pradesh with 142. The population figures, however, tell only part of the story. Between 2019-20 and 2023-24, 603 people died in elephant-related incidents across the four states - 242 in Tamil Nadu, 164 in Karnataka, 119 in Kerala and 21 in AP. In the same period, 190 elephants died — 72 in Karnataka, 52 in Tamil Nadu, 36 in Kerala and 30 in AP. The report notes that conflict is concentrated in identifiable landscapes and hotspots, with seasonal patterns often linked to crop cycles, water scarcity and elephant movements.
South India is home to some of the country’s most important elephant landscapes, including the Nilgiri-Eastern Ghats, Anamalai-Parambikulam-Periyar and Brahmagiri-Nilambur landscapes. Elephants move through forests, corridors, agricultural areas and other human-use landscapes in search of food, water and suitable habitat.
Agricultural expansion, settlements and infrastructure development, however, have reduced habitat continuity. Highways, railway lines, irrigation canals, power transmission lines, mining, wind energy installations and urban expansion can obstruct movement and, in some cases, pose direct risks to elephants. The pressures vary across the states. Highway and railway expansion in AP has affected newly colonised elephant ranges. In Karnataka, reservoirs and dam projects have submerged elephant habitats and disrupted traditional routes, while highway upgrades have added to fragmentation.
In Kerala, highways, railway lines, hydropower and irrigation projects, tourism infrastructure and expanding pilgrimage centres have put pressure on elephant habitats. In Tamil Nadu, highway and tourism-related development have affected corridors, while canals and other water infrastructure have created risks of accidental deaths.
Corridors and safer infrastructure
The plan places corridor protection and infrastructure safety at the centre of its interventions. It recommends identifying movement corridors and bottlenecks, restoring degraded habitats and incorporating wildlife-friendly structures such as overpasses and underpasses where roads and railway lines intersect elephant routes.
The four states have already adopted a range of measures to prevent elephants from entering human settlements and to warn communities when animals approach.
Karnataka has 2,286.62 km of elephant-proof trenches, 3,426.84 km of solar fencing and 312.92 km of railway barricades. Tamil Nadu has 1,310 km of elephant-proof trenches, 510 km of solar fencing, 30 km of hanging fence and 40 km of steel-rope fencing. Similarly, Kerala has nearly 1,472 km of physical barriers, about 93 per cent of which is solar fencing, while Andhra Pradesh has around 735 km of elephant-proof trenches, largely around Koundinya Wildlife Sanctuary.
The barriers, the report says, require continuous maintenance, as damaged fencing, vegetation growth and broken stretches can leave communities exposed. The regional plan proposes wider use of GPS telemetry, drones, AI-assisted warning systems, mobile applications and GIS-based tools to alert forest officials and communities before elephants enter high-risk areas. The plan also proposes greater involvement of people living along forest boundaries through community-level HEC management committees such as Jan Jagratha Samithis and Vana Samrakshana Samithis.
Funding based on risk
The proposed ₹999.87-crore investment will not be divided equally among the four states. The action plan uses a Composite Conflict-Risk Index based on elephant population, the level of HEC per 100 elephants and the geographical area over which elephants are distributed.
Karnataka has been assigned 38 per cent of the state-level allocation, Tamil Nadu 25 per cent, Kerala 20 per cent and Andhra Pradesh 17 per cent.
The Centre’s share is proposed at ₹500 crore, of which ₹480 crore will be allocated to the four states and ₹20 crore retained by WII for research, monitoring and evaluation. The states will contribute the balance as matching share. The plan also proposes annual elephant population estimation, individual profiling, radio-collaring, population viability studies, corridor assessment and research into habitat fragmentation and movement bottlenecks.
Inter-state coordination has been given particular importance as elephants move across administrative boundaries. The plan proposes annual coordination meetings at ministerial, Head of Forest Force/Chief Wildlife Warden and regional levels to share information and coordinate action across adjoining landscapes.