By IANS, New Delhi : A village in Kerala’s proposed elephant corridor has been successfully relocated by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), an NGO here, to put an end to the man-elephant conflict and protect the wild animals as well.
The six-km-long Tirunelli-Kudrakote corridor connects the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala and the Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary in neighbouring Karnataka and forms an important pathway for the elephant population in the Western Ghats.
The 30 residents of Thirulakunnu village were rehabilitated with their consent and the keys to their alternate homes were handed over to them Monday, a WTI press release said here.
They have been provided with new houses, cultivation land, drinking water and other civic facilities near Anappara village by WTI with support from the World Land Trust, Britain, and the IUCN Netherlands Committee.
The Thirulakunnu settlement, one of the five settlements in the corridor, has been an obstacle for initiating conservation actions. The remaining four settlements – Pulayankolli, Edayurvayal, Valia Emmadi and Cheriya Emmadi – will be relocated in the next phase of the project.
“This is the first successful attempt by WTI to relocate people from an elephant corridor adjacent to a wildlife sanctuary, and we thank the villagers for their willingness to join in the conservation efforts,” P.S. Easa, senior director of WTI, said in the release.
The Gowda community had been living in the region for four generations.
The human-elephant conflict had been on the rise in the region and villagers had to live in constant threat as wild elephants used to frequently destroy their crops and houses.
Extensive farming, timber collection, cattle grazing and construction of roads in the corridor had contributed to the increase in conflicts in recent times.
To minimize conflicts, the forest department had dug trenches, installed electric fences and built stonewalls, but these measures had not been foolproof.
“In 2006, discussions on the relocation were initiated with the villagers and within a record time of one year, the entire village has been relocated,” said Sabu Jahas, senior field officer of WTI.
“WTI has compensated them with equal value of their land – with land rights to all the relocated families,” he added.