New Delhi:As the world observes Elephant Day on August 12 to raise awareness about preservation and protection of the largest land mammals, a top Indo-Canadian conservationist says India has miles to go when it comes to saving their gentle giants.
With almost 1,200 elephants killed in the last 10 years across India -- 245 of them in the past three years in Odisha alone -- the gentle giants are at a grave risk, with just 27,000 left in the country at present.
And with Kerala losing 58 per cent of its wild elephants in the last six years, according to a 2023 forest department data, there "seems no sense of urgency to implement solutions and deal with a crisis unfolding in India," says multiple award-winning wildlife filmmaker and elephant conservationist, Sangita Iyer.
"India still has a long way to go when it comes to elephant conservation, and appreciating the interdependencies of every creature in this magnificent web of life," Iyer, founder of Voice for Asian Elephants Society (VFAES), told IANS in an interview.
'The pressing issues'-According to Kerala-born Iyer, India has some of the best wildlife protection laws, but they are not being enforced.
"The recently amended Wildlife Protection Act 1972 (Section 43) allows the transfer of elephants between states, creating loopholes that will be exploited, potentially emboldening illegal elephant captures. Additionally, even the existing laws are not being enforced," she says.
Citing the tragic case of a pregnant elephant in West Bengal, who died last month after officers allegedly darted mistaking it for a bull elephant, Iyer rues that many untrained forest officers are given the task of protecting elephants, wildlife and the natural treasures of India, which is causing a lot of harm.
"What a heinous crime against nature is this!! Now, the question is, will these officers be held accountable? Will they face the seven-year jail sentence as per the Wildlife Protection Act?"
Along with British MP Henry Smith, Iyer had addressed the UK Parliament in June, imploring Indian authorities to act urgently in the wake of the alarming number of elephant deaths caused by electrocution, poaching and habitat loss, among other growing threats.
Calling Odisha the "largest elephant graveyard", Iyer told the Parliament that "electrocution and train track deaths of elephants are happening at an alarming and appalling rate in Odisha where mining and poaching are out of control".
Rampant mining aside, roadways and railways cutting through core forests, illegal human encroachment and unsustainable extraction of forest resources have resulted in elephants losing 80 per cent of their habitats.
'The roar versus the trumpet'-This year, India witnessed a surge in the number of tigers, which were endangered and on the verge of extinction due to massive poaching, with mere 1,411 in 2006 to 3,682 in 2022.
Calling tiger conservation in India a massive success story, Iyer says that the Project Tiger authorities did a "phenomenal job" using the funds allocated by the Union government, and in comparison, Project Elephant "seems to have failed miserably".