Vital corridor for Asian elephants to be severed by government development in India

Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com
April 05, 2009

The largest wild population of Asian elephants in the world is threatened by development over a 2.5 kilometer wide corridor, according to Rainforest Informatin Centre which is apart of an international campaign to change the location of the development. The corridor, located in the Western Ghats of India, is the last unbroken forest leading the elephants from wet season to dry season feeding grounds. Unfortunately the corridor also connects two different Indian states: Kerala and Karnataka.

Already, a busy interstate highway passes through the elephants' forest, used by hundred of vehicles around the clock. Currently checkpoints leading from one state to another are located in three different places, leaving the forest corridor free for elephants to pass. However, a recent decision has been made to combine the checkpoints of the three states in the center of the elephant corridor.

“This development would include all manner of infrastructure - building complexes, housing, offices, toilets and dormitories for drivers, a fuel filling station and so on,” writes the nonprofit conservation group, Rainforest Information Centre. “The checkpoint clearance takes hours, so there would be hundreds of lorries parked along the road throughout the night on either side of the checkpoints within the forests preventing elephants from using the corridor.”

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