CHENNAI: Two youths from the Nilgiris district, Ramesh Maran (32) and Vishnu Varadhan (29), who belong to the Bettakurumba community have received the prestigious Mark Shand award from the King and Queen of England on Wednesday.
Both Ramesh and Vishnu were honoured on behalf of all the indigenous artisans crafting life-size elephants from Lantana camara (a highly invasive plant species). In addition to removing invasive species from the environment, these installations also provide livelihoods to communities dependent on the forest and foster human-wildlife co-existence.
The models of the ‘Lantana Elephants’ were made by The Real Elephant Collective in India, in partnership with the UK Charity Elephant Family. Close to 120 indigenous people in Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka are involved in making Lantana elephants and other crafts, and have gained over 3.5 crores in income over the last 5 years working on this project. 125 of these life-sized lantana elephants were displayed in the central London Parks in 2021, and in total close to 250 of them were auctioned to raise funds for Human-Wildlife Coexistence.
The funds raised from these exhibitions are supporting projects that promote human-wildlife coexistence in India, starting with a coexistence fellowship program being offered to young people across India, hosted by the Transdisciplinary University in Bengaluru and the Co-Existence consortium.
While International orders are continuing, The Real Elephant Collective has partnered with Rangde to launch the Nilgiri Elephant Fund, to raise working capital to keep the local artisans employed.
Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Environment, Forest and Climate Change for Tamil Nadu, said, "The Government of Tamilnadu is happy to see the indigenous of the state getting such recognition. The ancient bond between people and elephants should be celebrated widely.
This multifaceted project clears lantana from the forests, provides indigenous people with a livelihood, and celebrates human-wildlife coexistence. The Lantana elephants will soon be touring around the state as well."
Lantana camara is one of the ten most invasive weeds in the world, and the removal of which is highly beneficial to forests in the trijunction knot of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. Lantana and zenna are two invasive plant species that are known to degrade the biodiversity of forests in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, thus jeopardising the food security of wild animals. This in turn becomes an important cause for human-animal conflicts.
Ramesh, who received the award on behalf of those part of the project, was involved with research at the Shola Trust and Tamil Nadu Forest Department, in identifying and profiling the behaviour of individual elephants. This research showed that only about 7 of the 150 elephants in the Gudalur region were causing almost all the damage to residents' life and property. This significantly reduced conflict, since managing 7 problem elephants was significantly easier than chasing all the elephants away from human habitation.
These individual elephants formed the basis of the making of the Lantana elephants, each of which is modelled on a real wild elephant."I am really happy to meet the King and Queen and get recognition for my community and the work being done to remove Lantana from the forests. No one believes us simple people from Nilgiris are coming all the way here for this honour. Even the border immigration officer didn't believe us and read the invitation letter many times,” said Ramesh.
Vishnu's father meanwhile was a forester working for the Tamil Nadu Forest Department in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. His family has been working with elephants for at least 6 generations - as far back as they can remember. He was also involved with identifying individual elephants, and later started working on making the Lantana elephants through The Real Elephant Collective.
"It is nice to come all the way to London, and see that people care so much about elephants even though there are no elephants here. We went for a guided walk in London and heard that they used to have elephants in Buckingham Palace. You can also see elephant imagery in many places in London. Because of Kartiki Akkas film, everyone knows about the mahouts and elephants now. It is also amazing to see that the Lantana elephant we made in the Nilgiris are sitting here in the Palace with the Royal Family," said Vishnu.
The charity, Elephant Family, was founded by the Queen's late brother, Mark Shand, a well known elephant conservationist. The charity has a long history of undertaking high-profile and innovative campaigns to raise awareness and funds for Asian Elephants. The King and Queen continue to be patrons of the organisation.