Sahyadrica

Elephants and Chhattisgarh: An Ongoing History The elephant population assessment report of India is due for over a year, and it is likely only next year that we will see the numbers. Much has happened since the last update in 2017: About 1,160 elephant died in the 2010 decade mostly due to human-related causes (500 in the last five years alone since the last report) [ 1 , 2 ] – that’s 4% of the 2017 population of elephants, at 27,306 for the country. On the other side of this equation, 4,000 people died in the last decade (1,500 people in the last three years alone) due to human-elephant conflict [ 3 , 4 ], and an estimated 10,000 sq km of crop fields are damaged by wild elephants every year [ 5 ]. Overall, over 100 elephants and 400-500 people die every year, making human-elephant interaction an important issue to address. The delay in the assessment report, therefore, is a matter of concern. Much of wild elephant boundaries have been redefined –   in Central India, from seven ...

This long-form article covers roughly 500 years of history of wild Asian elephants in the central Indian highlands – a history that is still being written. It is an excerpt of a larger piece on central India I am working on. Given the recent happenings on wild elephants in India – and particularly central India – it is time we revisited our history to see how far we have come and where we’re headed. No Country For Wild Elephants That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song, The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. -- Sailing to Byzantium (1928) by William Butler Yeats This article is a part of a book on Central India, titled Our Roots Run Wild. It is available on Amazon India:  https://amzn.in/d/cvF8d60