Odisha: Securing & Rewilding Elephant Corridors
- Oct 22, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 3
Odisha’s forests, once lush sanctuaries for elephants, are now vanishing under the relentless pressures of development, leaving these gentle giants with nowhere to turn. Wildfires, mostly induced by reckless human actions, are also ravaging the forests, with climate change only exacerbating the devastation, leaving the elephants homeless and desolate. Starving and desperate, elephants are forced to risk their lives crossing treacherous highways, seeking food and water in villages and croplands. This tragic plight is intensifying human-elephant conflict, with lives lost on both sides.
A crisis is unfolding right now—and it is spiraling out of control.
According to the Wildlife Institute of India, the nation’s elephant population has plummeted to just 22,446 individuals—a staggering 18% decline from the 27,312 recorded in 2017. This is not a slow decline. This is a collapse unfolding in real time.
Behind these numbers are brutal, preventable deaths—elephants electrocuted by illegal fences, struck down by speeding trains, and pushed to the edge by reckless land-use decisions and human negligence. These are not accidents. They are symptoms of a system that is failing one of Earth’s most intelligent and ecologically vital beings.
And the situation is even more devastating on the ground.
In Odisha alone, nearly 100 elephants have died within just one year, according to Odisha's Minister of Forest and Environment—an alarming signal of how rapidly this crisis is escalating at the state level. Over the past decade, 790 elephants have perished in Odisha, with electrocution leading as the primary cause of these unnatural deaths. In this time, conflicts have claimed 668 human lives and left 509 others injured, underscoring the shared tragedy of this crisis.
If this trajectory continues, we are not just witnessing decline—we are witnessing the systematic erasure of a keystone species.
In the face of these escalating tragedies, Voices for Asian Elephants is taking bold, frontline action—working alongside grassroots partners like PARIBARTAN and Indigenous tribal communities.
In just one year, we have secured 52 acres of vital corridor land, reconnecting two fragmented forests and restoring a lost migratory path. The result? Over 50 elephants have already returned home. At the same time, we are healing degraded habitats—planting elephant-friendly, fruit-bearing saplings and creating waterholes within core forest areas. These are not small interventions—they are lifelines.
By bringing food and water back into their natural habitats, we are preventing elephants from straying into dangerous human landscapes—where too many tragedies occur—avoidable deaths.
This is how we are turning the tide: protecting lives, restoring ecosystems, and securing a future where elephants still roam free.
VFAE has planted over 100,000 elephant friendly saplings and created nine large waterholes in Susab, Pallahara and Balasore ranges in Odisha that serve as a critical habitat for elephants. The site is frequented by herds of elephants, indicating that it holds significance for them. During the construction of waterholes, elephants continued to visit the area, leaving behind their footprints.
These critical habitats likely boasts diverse ecological features, including a wide variety of vegetation and topography, contributing to the rich biodiversity and abundance of resources, making it an attractive habitat for elephants.
Meanwhile, the ground is being prepared to plant additional saplings, so that they can blossom during the rainy season, expected by mid-July. Thanks to our generous donors for their ongoing support to help us provide basic survival needs to these beleaguered elephants.
As the harsh summer envelops vast regions of India, with temperatures soaring up to 45 degrees Celsius or 113 Fahrenheit, water and food sources are depleting. By providing enough survival resources inside the forests, elephants will hopefully not venture into human habitats, preventing unnecessary conflicts.
More than 80% of elephant habitats have been lost to reckless development to sustain humans - with the population in India at 1.51 billion as of this year, surpassing China, and earning the top spot for an overcrowded country.
In 2022, VFAE partnered with the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), to grow and transplant thousands of elephant-friendly saplings in an elephant habitat adjacent to an existing corridor, aiming to ensure a safe passage for Odisha elephants and create a forest rich in biodiversity. A total of 11,000 seedlings were reared and 90% have survived in their transplanted locations.