A pregnant elephant in Kerala died due to the treacherous use of a food bomb by the locals.
What happened?
Many elephants are killed every year in India as their paths cross those of humans.
But the image of a mortally wounded animal standing impassively in a river in Palakkad as life ebbed out of it will remain in our mind.
Whether the booby-trapped pineapple that took the life of elephant was intended for elephants or other animals matters little.
Because such traps litter the troubled landscapes that surround forests across the country.
The perpetrators may be prosecuted for the elephant’s death.
But this can do little to mitigate the larger issue of lost ranges and blocked corridors for these wandering giants.
What does this incident remind us?
The tragic fate that occurred to this creature is a reminder of the risinghuman-animal conflicts.
These conflicts are only destined to grow, as commercial pressures eat into already diminished habitat.
India has just under 30,000 elephants but no strong science-imbued policy that encourages soft landscapes and migrating passages that will reduce conflict.
It is the lack of a scientific culture and the readiness to spare forested lands from commercial exploitation.
What are the reasons for conflict?
Shrinking ranges and feeding grounds for elephants cause serious worry, because the animals look for soft landscapes adjoining forests such as coffee, tea and cardamom estates.
In the absence of these soft landscapes, they wander into food-rich farms falling in their movement pathways.
Research in Karnataka showed that 60% of elephant distribution was encountered outside protected areas.
In Kerala, such movement along human-dominated landscapes routinely produces conflict.
Politicians in the State were opposed to the Madhav Gadgil Committee Report calling for the Western Ghats to be classified as ecologically sensitive and spared of destructive development.
With such fundamental philosophical disagreement, and a vision of lush landscapes as just a resource to be exploited, animals have little chance of escaping deadly conflict.
What is needed?
A sensible course open to conservation-minded governments is to end all intrusion into the 5% of protected habitat in India.
The governments must draw up better compensation schemes for farmers who lose crops to animals.
A culture shift to protect would genuinely enrich people and save biodiversity.
