Balancing development with conservation, ecological corridors for Asian elephants ensure habitat connectivity, safeguarding both wildlife and community interests.
A few large boulders seemed out of place near an underpass of NH 54E, a National Highway that passes through the forested hills of Karbi Anglong District in Assam. As the fog cleared on a January morning, the boulders turned out to be a small family of Asian elephants, waiting tentatively to cross over to the other side of their habitat. Little did the elephant family know that the structure was built specifically to allow the movement of elephants as speeding vehicles ply on the highway above. As the elephants crossed over to the other side, the giant strides of the species marked an even bigger leap for India, a rapidly developing nation that is trying to balance its infrastructure development goals with its ecological security by negating the impacts of linear infrastructure on wildlife habitats.
The Chilla-Motichoor corridor between Eastern and Western Rajaji is another example where overpasses have enabled movement of endangered species like elephants and tigers between habitats. The Kallar corridor in Western Ghats was crucial bottleneck for elephant movement which has been safeguarded by planning overpasses. While some of these corridors require infrastructure safeguards, some corridors need 360-degree approaches. The Nameri-Arimora Chapori-Sonai Rupai corridor in Assam is one such example where robust research on elephant movement, effective safeguards for safety of local communities, and buy-in from the State Forest Department has paved the way to secure age-old migratory routes of the Asian elephant amidst rapidly changing landscapes. The said corridor, passing through tea-plantations, agriculture fields and settlements ensures a vital link for elephants to access the grasslands of Brahmaputra River from their Himalayan foothill habitats.
Imagine a world where the road from your home to your office is blocked every day, even worse, what if you wake up in the morning and find a wall blocking your way to the washroom. Sounds outrageous right? To ensure that we function normally, we certainly need access to our offices, schools, and even the other rooms in our house. Now what if these essential movement routes get blocked? The movement routes that link vital parts of the habitat or home range of a species are called ecological corridors. Naturally, the persistence of wildlife species depend heavily on such corridors, especially for large-bodied and wide-ranging species. This is because the growth of human population and subsequent agriculture and infrastructure expansion has resulted in the reduction and fragmentation of our forests, where one large forest has been divided into smaller fragments interspersed with settlements, roads, and agricultural lands. Hence, to enable wildlife to move between habitats, there is an increasing emphasis on the concept of corridors that link vital habitats of a species or a group of species.
The concept of wildlife or ecological corridors is not new but the very definition of a corridor has changed drastically overtime with an increased understanding of animal ecology and co-adaptations between people and wildlife in shared landscapes. Traditionally, corridors have been defined as narrow strips of forested land that connect two larger habitats.
However, wildlife in India persist not only in forested land but also range across plantations, agro-forest mosaics including peri-urban spaces. Hence, the definition of ecological corridors has also changed to include any space that allows the movement of species from one habitat to another. The two most critical aspects of a corridors are that a. corridors must link two or more habitats of a species (usually natural habitats such as forests or wetlands or grasslands), and b. the land-use within the corridor must be permeable to wildlife. Hence, not all paths used by wildlife to move are corridors, for instance, an area that allows movement of elephants from a forest to crop fields is not a corridor. However, any crop field or other land-use that can be used by elephants to move between two habitats may be a corridor.
As our understanding of ecological corridors evolve to include larger connectivity zones beyond narrow strips of forests, the strategies for conserving these corridors need to be diverse and inclusive. Since ecological corridors are often in densely populated agro-forest mosaics, it is vital to ensure that the livelihood and safety of the local communities are not impacted by the use of these corridors by wildlife. This can be ensured through a combination of land-use planning, offsetting losses, financial incentives, and other measures that ensure the permeability of these areas for wildlife. Land-use planning is essential to ensure that the corridors are not blocked by infrastructure, offsetting losses is critical to garner local support for wildlife presence, and incentives ensure sustained acceptance of the local communities towards wildlife. All these aspects are essential considerations since corridors for large-bodied wildlife such as tigers and elephants are high-risk areas for local communities due to the threat of human casualties and economic losses. Once infrastructure safeguards are in place and the risks and costs to local communities are mitigated, the deep-rooted cultural acceptance towards all forms of life that is prevalent in India ensures that wildlife are able to freely move between habitats through these ecological corridors. This not only ensures the long term persistence of endangered species but also enable ecological flows of nutrients and other ecosystem services such as soil fertility, water security, carbon sequestration and ensures biodiversity conservation for the wellbeing of ecosystems and people.
Securing these ecological corridors are at the cornerstone of landscape conservation to reverse the impacts of habitat fragmentation and climate change. However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to conserve and secure ecological corridors due to the diversity of local contexts. When linear infrastructure such as railways and roads fragment critical habitats, engineering solutions such as overpasses or underpasses or safety measures to prevent the death of wildlife can help offset the risks of fragmentation and isolation of populations and habitats. Conservation organizations and State agencies, continuously strive to ensure such safeguards are embedded into any infrastructure plans along critical habitats if there is no scope for reorientation of the proposed infrastructure. The cost of such infrastructure safeguards often are miniscule in comparison to the cost of ecosystem services provided by contiguous habitats.
Innovative approaches moving beyond traditional Protected Area centric conservation models is the way forward to ensure the balance between ecological and economic security in spaces that are shared by people and wildlife in India and Asian elephants are an ideal flagship to design ecological corridors as the species move over vast areas and play crucial roles in maintaining the health of ecosystems.
The author Lead-Elephant Conservation, WWF-India.