Development is rapidly dwindling Odisha's forests, forcing elephants to enter villages/cropland and cross roads for food and water. This has increased human-elephant conflict and elephant deaths from vehicle collisions. This project will restore degraded habitats by cultivating favored elephant plant species and creating waterholes within elephant habitats. Local community members will be trained and employed to run the project.

Project partner - Paribartan

Unsustainable development including railway tracks and roads that cut through core habitats are a major cause of elephant deaths. Every year 2-3 elephants die in train collisions. Speed restrictions are enforced inside protected areas but not outside where most accidents occur. We are piloting an early warning system to alert train drivers of elephant presence, with enough time for the speeding train to stop. The sirens will also warn elephants about the trains, preventing them from crossing.  

The mission of this project is to create a safe passage for elephants when they migrate through the tea plantations between forest patches, and restore the lost habitats, by planting native and endemic species.

In India's West Bengal state, 1-2 elephants die each year from accidental or deliberate electrocutions. In 2020 alone, around 10 elephants had been electrocuted. We have installed elephant-friendly solar fencing around 3Km of a farmland and it is very effective. We are monitoring wildlife movement using camera trap. We have now launched our second 

Habitat loss is pushing elephants out of the forests in search of food, and they often get hit and killed by oncoming trucks. We have cultivated elephant-friendly fodder in our plant nursery and are in the process of replanting them to restore the depleted habitats.

Elephant deaths due to traffic collisions are mounting in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. We have installed groundbreaking reflective billboards 9' above ground, which will alert Odisha drivers, warning them to slow down and save elephants. 

This project aims to create safe shared spaces for people and elephants, using science based solutions. In West Bengal state, India, human and elephant deaths are alarmingly high at approx. 40 people and six elephants per year. A simple tool like flashlights are proving to be so effective that in the 50 villages we have distributed 2000 flashlights, there has been no elephant or human deaths. We are now distributing 2000 more flashlights in our second phase.

Work has already begun in Odisha, with VFAES, in partnership with Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), are leading a team of local conservationists to steer knowledge-driven elephant conservation actions in some of the most vulnerable regions of the state. One of the most important tasks is detecting live wires on the forest floor laid by poachers, in order to tackle wildlife crime.