A project to give forestland back to animals

Land occupied by private individuals is being rewilded for ensuring a safe corridor for elephants at Nilambur in Malappuram.

Even as the Kerala government takes several measures to attract foreign investment, stakeholders face many difficulties in executing even environment-friendly projects. Sangita Iyer, founder, Voices for Asian Elephants, an organisation working for the conservation of wild elephant corridors and restoration of their habitats, shares her experience in buying four acres of land in the State for a project to ease human-elephant conflict and foster peaceful co-existence between people and wild animals. She highlights the bureaucratic hurdles involved and the smear campaigns the organisation had to face.

You have been working on a project that aims at giving forestland encroached upon by people decades ago back to animals. The project to create awareness of the conservation of elephant habitats has almost materialised after around five years. What is the project all about.

It’s a simple project. We purchased around four acres of land at Nilambur which abuts the forest to create a safe corridor for elephants in the area. The land is connected to Karimpuzha Wildlife Sanctuary, the Kerala side of Silent Valley National Park, and Mukkuruthy National Park in Tamil Nadu side, and has high conservation value. The aim is to ensure continuity of elephant habitat. It was a plantation area, and we removed the electric fencing set up there by planters and closed the wells in the region. The space is now completely left open for natural rewilding.

What are the salient features of the project?

The 4-acre plot is now a safe corridor and approximately 340 elephants can use the land to traverse between two forest patches, thus helping alleviate the human-elephant conflict in the region. This will also prevent inbreeding, and ensure genetic flow between herds, aiding the survival of an endangered species. Buying back forestland that belongs to wildlife is critical and is the only long-term measure to ensure harmonious coexistence.

Why did this project take around five years to complete? 

First, we admit the complexity of land purchase regulations in India, particularly for foreign organisations such as ours. We facilitated the acquisition of land through our local partner, Nature Mates, in 2023 and subsequently initiated the transfer process to the Kerala Forest department. We raised the funds for the project in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We spent around $60,000 (approximately ₹50 lakh) for the project, including legal expenses. It took around five tedious years to complete the proceedings. Given that this was our first land purchase project in India, we learnt many lessons. We had to face smear campaigns and allegations propagated by the Kerala Independent Farmers Association (KIFA) regarding the transfer of land for conservation purposes. The bureaucratic hurdles inherent in the land transfer process and the tedious and inefficient nature of these procedures led to delays. However, the cooperation of Forest department officials is worth mentioning, particularly Forest department secretary K.R. Jyothilal, officials like Prakriti Srivastava, Vijayanand, former South Nilambur DFO Praveen Kumar, and our local partner, Nature Mates, for making this project a reality.

Have you achieved your goal now? Do you have any intention to make the private land trapped inside the forest available to animals?

The process that may take around two to three months in foreign countries is almost over now, although we are still awaiting official declaration of the land as protected forest. In fact, there are around 60 acres of land inside the forest with private players, and they have contacted us to acquire their land as well. Given the experience, the Board of Directors will reconsider future land deals. Our main objective of purchasing the land and transferring it to the State government is to highlight the issue of conserving elephant habitats, their migratory pathways and corridors, which will help mitigate the human-elephant conflict by preventing them from straying out of their habitats, fostering peaceful co-existence.