Ceremony Held to Celebrate Securing Vital Elephant Corridor
The residents of Pulayankolly, a farming community from within a vital elephant corridor in south India, are currently moving into their new homes away from the corridor. The fifteen families opted for a better life elsewhere, and Elephant Family has supported their resettlement with agricultural land and new housing, for which a ceremony was held on Tuesday 2nd August to hand over the keys and transfer the land deeds. While there is one remaining community to be relocated, the corridor has to all intents and purposes been secured, and elephants can now pass freely between two of the most important sectors of their greatest remaining stronghold in Asia.
The Tirunelli-Kudrakote corridor is a 2,200-acre (6 x 1.5km) strip of land between the Wayanad and Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuaries, providing a vital lifeline within the Nilgiri Elephant Landscape, home to the world’s largest population of as many as 6,500 Asian elephants. But until a few years ago, 54 families in five settlements were living and farming in the corridor, and if these had spread, a disastrous break could have formed in the forests, isolating groups of elephants from each other.
To secure the corridor and enable the free movement of elephants and other wildlife within the Nilgiri Landscape, Elephant Family’s partner organisation the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) has been facilitating the voluntary resettlement of the subsistence farmers living within the corridor, in association with the Kerala Forests and Wildlife Department. As part of the relocation package a total of 6.5 acres was purchased and fifteen good quality houses (as pictured above with the project team and new residents) were built for the families with financial support from the Nando Peretti Foundation. The relocation site, Sekkady, was selected together with the Pulayankolly community, ensuring that their needs and desires were met. The new location is near the town, providing access to education, healthcare and greater job opportunities, all of which were previously unavailable due to their location in the forest, where they were also suffering from loss of crops to elephants, and faced the daily risk of a dangerous encounter with them. Construction of new homes got underway at the very end of 2009 and continued throughout last year. An old building has been restored as a recreation centre, and three wells have also been constructed.
While Sekkady was being prepared, Elephant Family and WTI also successfully relocated the fourth settlement, Kottapadi, last year. The sole former resident of Kottapadi, Lakshmi Avva, was present at the handover ceremony on Tuesday, and said, “I am happy for people of Pulayankolly and think they have made the right decision by giving up their land for conservation’s sake”.
Thanks to Elephant Family – as well as the earlier investment of the World land Trust and the IUCN-Netherlands – only one of the five settlements remains to be secured. However this is on the edge of the forest, and WTI’s monitoring shows that elephants and other wildlife are now regularly using the corridor: a herd of gaur (or Indian bison) were seen in the corridor the day before the handover ceremony. Functionally the corridor has therefore already been saved, and eventually the land secured so far will be transferred to the Kerala Forests and Wildlife Department, for incorporation into the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. This will complete the process, and in doing so, and demonstrating its success, the project will act as a model for securing other vital elephant and wildlife corridors elsewhere in India and beyond.
written by Dan Bucknell on 05th August 11
