Chhattisgarh Mining Disaster Forces Elephants Into Lethal Human Conflicts

The Final Migration (1994), an award-winning quick movie by Mike Pandey, famously depicted the journey of elephants from Bihar to Sarguja district in Chhattisgarh (then a part of Madhya Pradesh), braving forest fires and human interference alongside the best way. Three a long time later, a much more advanced and tragic actuality is unfolding in Chhattisgarh. Because the huge forested areas of the State succumb to the continuing push for mining and enormous infrastructure initiatives, elephants discover themselves pressured out of their pure habitats. This has resulted in elephants venturing into human settlements and even migrating to neighbouring States.

A direct fallout of this disaster is escalating human-elephant battle in a area the place tuskers and tribal individuals have coexisted peacefully for hundreds of years. In keeping with the Chhattisgarh Forest and Local weather Change Division, the State has witnessed over 80 elephant deaths up to now six years. As many as 13 deaths as a result of electrocution had been reported in 2024 alone.

The Ministry of Setting, Forest and Local weather Change knowledgeable the Rajya Sabha in July that 303 human deaths had been reported from Chhattisgarh up to now 5 years. This quantities to about 15 per cent of the human-elephant conflict-related fatalities nationwide, though the State is residence to only one per cent of India’s elephant inhabitants. In keeping with the 2017 All India Synchronised Elephant Inhabitants Estimate, India is residence to 29,964 elephants, which is round 60 per cent of the entire inhabitants of Asian elephants (about 50,000–60,000) on the planet.

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Meetu Gupta, a member of the State Wildlife Board, mentioned that the present disaster is mainly due to the fragmentation of elephant habitats owing to mining and linear improvement actions. “There’s a lack of correct scientific wildlife administration and panorama planning,” Gupta mentioned, including that political will and the priorities of presidency officers favour the exploitation of pure sources over wildlife conservation.

Elephant demise toll

The latest escalation of the human-elephant battle in Chhattisgarh has prompted authorized intervention. On November 4, the Chhattisgarh Excessive Courtroom took suo motu discover of a information report in regards to the electrocution of three elephants in Raipur’s Chuhkimar forest division.

The elephants had been killed after they got here into contact with an 11 kV stay wire hanging simply 3-4 metres above the bottom. The court docket directed the Chhattisgarh State Energy Distribution Firm Ltd. (CSPDCL) to submit an affidavit outlining the steps taken to forestall such incidents.

Nitin Singhvi, a wildlife activist who filed a petition within the Chhattisgarh Excessive Courtroom in 2018 towards electrocution deaths, mentioned: “Since 2001 when the State got here into being, 227 elephants have died. No less than 80 elephants have died of electrocution. The petition was disposed of in 2019 with instructions to CSPDCL and the forest division.” He moved the court docket once more in 2021 on grounds of non-compliance. The petition was disposed of on October 3 after the Chhattisgarh Forest Division knowledgeable the Excessive Courtroom via an affidavit that CSPDCL would take essential steps in accordance with the rules laid down by the Central authorities. Singhvi mentioned: “The facility firm is just not certain by any deadline. It has assured the court docket that it’s going to do what’s required in a phased method.”

In the meantime, the elephant demise toll continues. On November 1, an elephant calf died of electrocution in Bilaspur district; on November 12, one other elephant was discovered lifeless close to a paddy area in Balrampur district. This elephant had been a part of a herd stranded within the space for a number of days. On November 8, an elephant calf was deserted by its herd of 40 elephants in Risgaon vary when it was critically injured after stepping on a potash bomb. Potash bombs are sometimes utilized by poachers within the area. The federal government has introduced a reward of Rs.10,000 for any data that would result in the arrest of the accused.

Stopping human-elephant battle

On November 9, a herd of rogue elephants trampled two kids, aged 5 and 11, sleeping of their residence in Surajpur district, which, by the way, can be residence to the Hasdeo Arand forest. On November 28, the carcass of an elephant was found within the Pratappur space of Surajpur district. The reason for demise stays unclear, although native media experiences counsel that it may have been as a result of electrocution. Villagers had reportedly constructed electrical fences to guard their crops after a herd of elephants had strayed into the realm.

Talking on World Elephant Day (August 12) at a perform in Raipur, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai mentioned that it was his authorities’s high precedence to forestall human-elephant battle. He listed steps being undertaken such because the “Hamar Haathi, Hamar Goth” (Our elephants, our discuss) radio programme, the Gaj Yatra marketing campaign, and the event of the Lemru Elephant Reserve for elephant conservation in Surguja, Korba, and Raigarh districts.

In 2018, 5 skilled Kumki elephants from Karnataka arrived in Chhattisgarh as a part of a programme to discourage wild tuskers from venturing into the villages. Presently, forest officers use the Haathi Alert, Gaj Sanket, and Sajag apps, which use satellite tv for pc know-how, to trace the motion of elephants and alert villagers accordingly. Nonetheless, these are seen as beauty measures.

Observers just like the environmental activist Alok Shukla say that the issue has roots in company mining. Blaming the continuing large-scale deforestation in elephant habitats and their migration corridors for the escalating human-elephant battle, Shukla mentioned: “At current, Hasdeo Arand forest is the largest instance of how company revenue is most well-liked over wildlife, setting, and tribal pursuits.”

In Chhattisgarh, there was widespread resistance by the native tribal inhabitants and environmental activists towards the coal mining initiatives allotted to the Rajasthan authorities and the Adani Group, amongst others. In November, a public protest towards the felling of bushes for the Parsa coal block venture turned violent when the demonstrators clashed with police, leaving a number of protesters and 15 officers, together with policemen, injured in Sarguja district. Regardless of this native resistance, observers famous that mining actions proceed beneath heavy police safety. By the way, the Chhattisgarh Legislative Meeting unanimously handed a Non-public Member Decision in 2022 urging the Central authorities to cancel coal blocks in Hasdeo Arand.

Coal mining in Hasdeo Arand

A latest investigation into the Parsa coal block mining in Sarguja and Surajpur districts by the Chhattisgarh State Scheduled Tribes Fee (CGSTC) has identified that consent for mining was obtained via solid paperwork.

The block awarded to Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Restricted (RRVUNL) in 2015 is adjoining to the operational Parsa East and Kente Basan (PEKB) block. Each districts come beneath Schedule V of the Structure, which requires gram sabha (village council) consent for land acquisition beneath the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act.

In a letter to the district Justice of the Peace of Surguja on November 4, the CGSTC acknowledged: “To acquire environmental clearance and permission for forest land diversion for the Parsa Coal Block, Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Restricted misused district administration officers and workers. They mentally harassed elected tribal girls sarpanches and nominated gram sabha presidents, pressuring them to signal fraudulently ready proposals. This constitutes harassment beneath the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.”

RRVUNL, in the meantime, has refuted the accusations and assertions. In a media assertion, the corporate acknowledged: “The difficulty of Gram Sabha’s approval is pending adjudication, and not one of the courts have but handed any antagonistic remark on the side of alleged irregularity within the permissions.”

Sustaining that the deforestation has resulted in a meals disaster for the elephants, Shukla mentioned: “That is forcing them to enter into villages, harm crops, and even migrate to neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. The elephants are shifting from north to south in Chhattisgarh in massive numbers. The battle has clearly intensified in areas reminiscent of Korba, Raigarh, Surajpur, Balrampur, and undivided Bastar area.”

The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) performed a research in 2019 on the behest of the Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal to evaluate the environmental impression of mining within the Hasdeo forests in response to a petition filed by Sudiep Shrivastava, an setting lawyer primarily based in Bilaspur. It submitted a report titled “Biodiversity Evaluation with Emphasis on Choose Faunal Teams in Hasdeo Arand Coal Subject” to the the Indian Council of Forestry Analysis and Training (ICFRE) in 2021.

Stressing that the WII and the ICFRE had predicted the continuing human-elephant battle, Shukla mentioned: “It [the report] clearly acknowledged that human-elephant battle will grow to be unmanageable if any new permission is given to a mining venture within the space.”

The report beneficial that mining operations be allowed solely within the parts of the PEKB block which can be already open for mining. It identified the irreplaceable loss that will consequence from deforestation, together with the destruction of wealthy biodiversity and the potential lack of as much as 70 per cent of the earnings of native Adivasi communities who depend on forest sources for meals, fodder, gasoline, and medicinal vegetation.

Referencing a 2009 research by the Ministry of Coal and the Ministry of Setting, which designated the Hasdeo–Arand coal fields as a “no-go” zone, the report famous: “Any additional risk to elephants’ intact habitats on this panorama may probably deflect human-elephant battle into different newer areas within the State, the place battle mitigation could be unattainable for the state to handle.”

The report additionally noticed that more and more, elephants are straying into Chhattisgarh from neighbouring Jharkhand and Odisha owing to habitat fragmentation and degradation attributable to land-use adjustments, infrastructure improvement, and mining. The All-Odisha Elephant Census 2024 reported a rise within the elephant inhabitants over the previous eight months. The census highlights important inter-State motion, with elephants migrating to Odisha from Jharkhand and West Bengal and, of late, from Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh as effectively.

The latest deaths of no less than 10 elephants and a calf in a span of two weeks in Madhya Pradesh’s Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (BTR) prompted Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav to take up the difficulty with Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai. He advised reporters that a number of herds of elephants had migrated to Madhya Pradesh from Chhattisgarh within the latest previous and a few of them had settled down within the BTR unfold throughout the districts of Umaria and Katni.

In keeping with official knowledge launched in 2019, Madhya Pradesh was residence to solely seven elephants. However consultants imagine that in recent times, elephants from Chhattisgarh have began migrating to Madhya Pradesh, taking the estimated inhabitants of elephants to about 100. On November 28, one other elephant received killed after it was electrocuted by an 11 kV electrical wire in Majhtolwa village beneath Madhya Pradesh’s Mukundpur forest vary.

Name for conservation

In 2023, Shrivastava filed a contemporary PIL petition within the Supreme Courtroom difficult the approval for non-forest use and mining within the Section II Space Forest Land of 1,136 hectares within the PEKB block. Citing the biodiversity evaluation performed by the WII, the petition highlighted that the research had explicitly beneficial towards any additional mining within the Hasdeo space past the already disturbed land within the PEKB block, and referred to as for the realm to be declared a “conservation reserve” beneath Part 36A of the Wildlife Safety Act, 1972.

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The petition additionally famous that whereas the ICFRE had beneficial designating Hasdeo Arand as a bio-conservation space, it made an exception for 4 coal blocks—PEKB, Parsa, Tara, and Kete Extension—the place mining may proceed, owing to prior clearances. Moreover, the petition argued that except Tara, all of the blocks had been allotted to RRVUNL, which subsequently transferred the rights to Adani-owned personal firms, in violation of the Mines and Minerals (Growth and Regulation) Act, 1957, and the Coal Mines (Particular Provisions) Act, 2015.

Shrivastava mentioned: “The concession granted by the ICFRE straight contradicts its personal findings and observations within the report.” Expressing concern over India’s 176th rank within the World Nature Conservation Index, 2024, as proof of the Central authorities’s indifference in direction of the setting, he added: “The continued mining in Hasdeo may have a catastrophic impression on the Bango Dam, the biggest irrigation dam within the State, in addition to the encircling ecology. This can devastate each the native inhabitants and wildlife, with the human-elephant battle more likely to intensify within the close to future.”