Elephant micro-habitats in WB helps bring down human deaths, crop damage | Kolkata

“Once my family had a lucky escape. It was well past midnight, and we were all sleeping. I woke up to some noise and saw the trunk of an elephant entering my hut through a gaping hole the elephant had made in the mud wall. I soon alerted my family, and we rushed out. The elephant while pulling out its trunk damaged the entire wall and a portion of the hut collapsed,” Kundu said.

But over the past few years, the situation seemed to have improved in Barjora forest range of Bankura district, villagers said. There hasn’t been a single human casualty in Barjora village in the last one year.

“For the first time in many years, there has been no human casualty in Barjora range. This year more than 60 elephants had come to the forest but remained mostly inside the forest area. As a result, incidents of crop damage in the villages located in the fringe areas have also come down significantly,” said Purnendu Sarkar, a villager and the president of a local platform set up to find solutions to the man-elephant conflict.

Also Read: Assam: Mother, daughter killed after elephants stray into home

Over the past few years, man-elephant conflict has been rampant in south Bengal with incidents of casualties and damage to properties and crops being reported from five districts including Bankura, Jhargram, West Midnapore, Purulia and Birbhum.

At least 99 people were killed across the state (north Bengal and south Bengal) by elephants in 2023-24.

Data placed in the Lok Sabha in July 2024 reveals that at least 436 people have been killed by elephants between 2019-20 and 2023-24.

But over the past few years, the state forest department has come up with some ‘elephant micro-habitats’ in the forests of south Bengal, which have helped to bring down the man-elephant conflict to a large extent in those pockets, officials said.

“This is a new approach in which patches of land, within the forest area, are developed so that they can attract and sustain elephant herds. There is enough food and water in the micro-habitats. Also, fences are put so that the elephants can be restricted from venturing into the villages in the forest fringes,” said S Kulandaivel, the chief conservator of forest (western circle) in West Bengal.

While at least three such micro-habitats, including one in Bankura’s Barjora area, have been set up, at four others are in various stages of development. The micro-habitat at Barjora spreads across 40 sq km in the forest. It is located in one of the elephant corridors passing through that area.

“The area was developed with plantations of crops and plants that elephants find palatable – jackfruit, elephant apple, wild mango and maize among others. Water bodies have been dug up inside the forest patch. Also, barriers have been put up which includes both energized fencing and trenches to prevent elephants from straying out into the villages,” he added.

While Barjora registered 86 human casualties between 2014 and 2019, the number has come down to 26 between 2020 and 2025. There has been no casualty in the last one year. Elephants damaged at least 4,390 houses between 2014 and 2019. The number dropped to 2,895 between 2020 and 2025. Also, the amount of crop damage has come down from 6,135 hectares to 3,343 hectares during the same period.

“This is despite the fact that elephants stayed for higher number of days in Barjora in recent years. While elephants stayed in Barjora for 4,421 days between 2014 and 2019, they stayed for 5,294 days between 2020 and 2025,” an official said.

While north Bengal has around 488 elephants, south Bengal has around 194 pachyderms.

In 2023, the Union environment and forest ministry in a report had identified at least 150 elephant corridors across India. While there were 11 corridors in south Bengal, two were inter-state corridors shared with Jharkhand.

Forest officials said that planning is underway to develop more such micro-habitats in the forests of West Midnapore and Jhagram districts which register several incidents of man-elephant conflict leading to human deaths and damage to properties.

“Buoyed by the success of the Barjora model, more such habitats are being planned at several stretches including Gogolchoti, Kamrangi, Suknakhali and Tetulbandh in West Midnapore and Bankura districts,” said a senior forest official.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, in a recent administrative meeting, has directed officials to use drones to monitor the movement of elephants.

“We sometimes use drones to tackle the movement of elephants, but a project has been sanctioned in which heavy duty drones fitted with night vision cameras would be used to tackle the man-elephant conflict for the first time. It is being funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency,” a top forest department official told HT.