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Establishing a corridor for the elephants of Jharkhand using Remote Sensing and GIS
Data used and methodology
IRS Wifs Feb 2001 satellite image on 1:250,000 scale was visually interpreted for the forest cover, and water bodies. It was digitized and geocoded.
The elephant movement paths were traced on Survey of India Toposheets on 1:50,000 scale based on the field interview of the people from villages where elephant man conflict was reported in the newspapers. The official reports of elephant sighting by the forest guards of the forest department were also incorporated to some extent. These paths were rectified and geocoded.
The transportation network of the state was treated similarly.
All these layers were overlaid on each other to see the overall situation of the elephant traffic routes.
A 1km buffer was created for the transportation network and a 6 km buffer was created on the elephant routes and the forest area.
The block boundaries of the state were also digitized so as to identify the blocks through which the corridor was established.
These buffers were intersected to find out the conflicting areas of the three themes namely elephant routes, rail and road network, which were to be avoided during the corridor planning.
While planning the corridor, care was taken to follow the existing elephant routes to the maximum extent and to incorporate the forested paths and water bodies in the routes.
Discussion
The overlay of the new elephant routes on the forested area shows that these intelligent creatures have been driven through the places where they could sense water bodies. The planned corridor is a 6 km buffered area keeping in mind that the daily movement of the herd is about 5 km .
Despite all efforts it was not possible to entirely to avoid the passage of rail and road routes through the corridor, but these intersection i.e of the rail and the road with that of the planned corridor, has been taken through forested area rather than agricultural land as the existing routes of these two heards were.
The planned corridor would enable the elephants to pass from one forest reserve into another, alternately to drive back the isolated herds into their original habitat by experts avoiding man-elephant conflict.
Acknowledgement:
The authors acknowledge the help of the Department of Forest and Environment, Government of Jharkhand, in terms of their data input and important information pertaining to this subject. Special mention may be made of Mr. S Lahiri, Ranchi and Mr H S Gupta (IFS), Chaibasa for their close involvement and interaction. The authors also feel indebted to the local populace around the indicated elephant movement routes for the type of co-operation extended by them in understanding the grass root issues related to this subject in better depth.
References:
- Daniel, J.C., (ed) 1980. The status of Asian Elephants in Indian Subcontinent. IUCN/SSC Report, Bombay Natural History Society, Bombay
- Evaluation Report of Project Elephant 2001 in the state of Jharkhand - Department of Forest and Environment, Got. Of Jharkhand.
- Khanna, V., Ravichandran, M.S. and Kushwaha, S.P.S. 2001, J.of Ind. Soc. Of Remote Sensing, Vol 29, No 1&2, 2001 pp 41-46
- Panwar, H.S., 1986, Forest Cover Mapping for Planning Tiger Corridors between Khanha and Bandhavgarh- A proposed project. Proceedings on Seminar-cum-Workshop on wildlife Habitat Evaluation Using Remote Sensing Techniques. October 22-23, 1986.
- State of Forest Report, 1999, Forest Survey of India.
- Sukumar, R. 1989. The Asian Elephant: Ecology and management, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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