BHUBANESWAR : In the wake of a surge in jumbo mortality attributed to linear intrusion, a group of researchers and conservation experts has advocated innovative and eco-friendly solutions to safeguard wildlife corridors and reduce the adverse impact of linear infrastructures such as power lines, pipelines, canals and railways on wild animals across elephant range states.
Central to the proposed solutions is the development and implementation of effective crossing structures specifically designed to accommodate the movement patterns of elephants and other wild animals.
According to experts, linear transport infrastructure (LTI) constitutes a significant force-altering natural ecosystem impacting biodiversity. Poorly planned and developed LTI can have severe impacts on ecosystems and species.
The concern stems from the fact that India has lost around 15 elephants annually in five years between 2018 and 2022-23 due to train accidents. Besides, 75 jumbos died due to electrocution annually in the same period.
As per the statistics, 75 elephants have been killed in the country in the last five years between 2018-19 and 2022-23. Assam alone reported 24 such deaths in this period. Similarly, 379 other elephants died due to electrocution across the country, including a number of accidental electrocutions.
Road accidents too have their share of pachyderm deaths across elephant range states, including Odisha, where at least five were killed in such incidents in the last five years between 2019-20 and 2023-24.
In a new ‘Handbook to mitigate the impacts of roads and railways on Asian elephants’, released recently, conservationists and researchers underlined that in India, which is home to more than half of the ‘endangered’ Asian elephants, the LTI, especially collisions with trains, is a leading anthropogenic cause of jumbo mortality.
They also underlined the impact of highways on elephant movement, citing that highways with 4,000–10,000 average annual daily traffic present substantial barriers to wildlife, while at 10,000 average annual daily traffic and above, highways become impermeable barriers for the wildlife.
The handbook, prepared by two IUCN specialist groups — the Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group and the Asian Elephant Specialist Group, in collaboration with US-based The Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC), also points out that expansion or development of new infrastructure can have severe impacts on ecosystems and species, especially in and around protected areas.
The impact, according to it, ranges from loss, fragmentation and degradation of wildlife habitat to increased rates of wildlife casualties.
Accordingly, the handbook proposes that compiling information on locations of elephant collisions with vehicles and trains along LTI can be invaluable in identifying where crossing structures and fencing may be warranted to prevent future collisions and ensure protection of the jumbos and the safety of people travelling through those areas. The researchers and authors of the handbook also proposed that when new roads, canals, railway lines and other linear infrastructures are planned, there should be a proper impact assessment of these structures on wildlife.
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“The structures should be designed in ways that minimise their impact on forest and wildlife and to make this happen we need to spend a little more time on our drawing boards,” said Chief of Conservation at Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and co-author of the handbook, Sandeep Tiwari.
He said that those involved in planning and designing the linear infrastructure within forest areas need to know what should be the dimension of the structures, their height, width etc to ensure it doesn’t emerge as a barrier for the elephants or other widlife species.
Recent engineering developments and new design options have dramatically reduced the costs of underpasses and overpasses that help in commissioning barrier-free road and railway infrastructure, the report said.
A senior official from the forest department in Odisha said they have already collaborated with WTI and other stakeholders to explore such innovative and eco-friendly infrastructures to check the adverse impact of linear intrusion on wildlife.
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