Saving Human lives, Livelihoods and Elephants

Every year hundreds of farmers lose their crops and sometimes even their lives to wild elephants around Hosur. As a consequence, elephants become objects of unnecessary hate and suffer retaliation. These elephants often die unnatural deaths due to shooting, accidents and electrocution. Keeping the wild elephants away from areas of human activity is essential to its conservation. An effective elephant proof barrier will prevent unnecessary elephant deaths and also save human lives and livelihoods.

KANS and the Hosur Forest Division have developed an innovative elephant-proof wire rope barrier. This barrier was designed from the ground up and tested at every stage to ensure that it is safe, effective, and long-lasting. The District Collector of Krishnagiri, KANS, and a few well-wishers funded this development initiative. The barrier was then installed along 13 kilometres of forest boundary, funded under the Tamil Nadu Innovations Initiatives (Government of Tamil Nadu scheme). For the first time in many years, poor farmers were able to harvest a full crop. The number of elephant crop-raiding incidents has come down drastically.

Resources:

The Melagiri Elephant Fence - A Crucial tool for Human-Elephant Control (paper published in Indian Forester)

Steel Wire Rope Fence - An Innovative Elephant Proof Barrier for Mitigation of Human Elephant Conflict (technical report)

Wire rope fence to prevent human elephant conflict (YouTube video)

However, a final component of the fence needs to be installed to make it 100% effective. We now need to provide 5850 auxiliary eucalyptus support poles along the wire rope barrier. At Rs. 165 per pole, this works out to Rs. 9,65,250 for the entire 13 kms. The completion of the wire rope barrier will put a stop to human elephant conflict in this area.  This will benefit over twenty thousand families of marginal farmers and prevent at least half a dozen elephant deaths outside forest areas every year.

Please support by donating for this cause. Donations to KANS are exempt from income tax under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act of India. You can either make a direct bank transfer to our account (preferred), or make an online payment via Razorpay.

In case you make a bank transfer, please email your name, contact details and transaction-number to Secretary, KANS at secretary@kans.org.in so that we can send you the receipt.