THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a major move to mitigate human-elephant conflict on forest fringes, the forest department has joined hands with Tata Motors for a pilot initiative to implement an AI-enabled real-time elephant intrusion alert system. The project to provide near real-time alerts on elephant presence and movement is being executed as part of the mission-mode programme on ‘Real-Time Monitoring’, one of the 12 missions by the state government.
The proposed solution integrates AI-enabled cameras with on-site video analytics, capable of detecting elephant movement and generating alerts. These alerts are transmitted using LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) connectivity. This would enable early detection, timely alerts and coordinated response by field staff and local response teams.
Upon successful completion of the pilot phase, the forest department plans statewide roll out across conflict-prone forest divisions.
Each division will be equipped with multiple sets of such systems, at least 20 units, for deployment in areas with full network connectivity, limited point-to-point communication, as well as complete no-network zones.
An MoU for the project was signed between chief wildlife warden Pramod G Krishnan and Naveen Pandey, general manager and Head (Biodiversity), Tata Motors, at an event presided over by head of Forest Force Rajesh Ravindran. Forest Minister A K Saseendran said the initiative will strengthen the state’s efforts in addressing human wildlife conflict. APCCF (Forest Management) L Chandrasekar, CCF & CEO (CAMPA) Shrawan Kumar Varma, CCF (Ecodevelopment & Tribal Welfare) & member-secretary SFDA Karthikeyan and C Meenakshi, CF & TA to PCCF & CWW too attended.