"Supreme Court intervenes to protect elephant movement corridors across states"
Elephant corridor
a linear stretch of land connecting two or more natural habitats for wildlife movement.
Home range
the area an animal typically uses for food, water, and shelter in its daily and seasonal life.
Project Elephant, launched in 1992, was designed to assist states with free-ranging wild elephant populations. Its core aim is to ensure the long-term survival of viable elephant populations in their natural habitats. The project operates through the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and provides financial and technical support to state forest departments. Unlike Project Tiger (1973), which benefits from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory body under the Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Act, 2006, elephant conservation lacks an equivalent statutory apex authority, creating a structural asymmetry in institutional protection.
The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 (WPA) provides the primary legal framework for protecting wildlife and their habitats. Protected Areas (PAs), national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation reserves, and community reserves, receive formal legal protection under this Act. However, elephant corridors, like tiger corridors, are not formally notified as Protected Areas. Their protection depends on discretionary scrutiny during environmental clearance processes under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 (FCA) and the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL). This governance gap is central to the Supreme Court's intervention.
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), an autonomous body under MoEFCC, has been the primary scientific agency for corridor mapping. Its studies, along with those of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), have documented how elephant movement is shaped by seasonal food and water availability, population density, and human disturbances.
Elephant corridors are linear stretches of land connecting two or more natural habitats. They serve multiple ecological functions. They allow elephants to move for food and water across seasons. They enable genetic exchange between otherwise isolated populations, maintaining population diversity. They reduce pressure on any single habitat patch by distributing elephant presence across a larger landscape.
India's elephant population of 22,446 individuals (as per the last all-India estimation) is distributed across four principal landscapes: the Western Ghats; the North-Eastern Hills and Brahmaputra floodplains; the Shivalik Hills and Gangetic plains; and Central India and the Eastern Ghats. More than 50% of India's elephants are concentrated in the Western Ghats, with Karnataka (6,013), Tamil Nadu (3,136), and Kerala (2,785) holding the largest state-level populations.
The government's 2023 corridor mapping exercise documented 150 elephant corridors across 15 states in these four landscapes. …
With reference to Indian elephants, consider the following statements:
1.The leader of an elephant group is a female.
2.The maximum gestation period can be 22 months.
3.An elephant can normally go on calving till the age of 40 years only.
4.Among the States in India, the highest elephant population is in Kerala.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Consider the following statements:
1.Animal Welfare Board of India is established under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
2.National Tiger Conservation Authority is a statutory body.
3.National Ganga River Basin Authority is chaired by the Prime Minister.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
What role do environment NGOs and activists play in influencing Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) outcomes for major projects in India? Cite four examples with all important details.
With reference to elephant corridors in India, consider the following statements:
1.The government's 2023 corridor mapping exercise identified 150 elephant corridors across 15 states.
2.Elephant corridors are formally notified as Protected Areas under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
3.West Bengal has the highest number of identified elephant corridors among all states.
4.Corridors facilitate genetic exchange between otherwise isolated elephant populations.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
Which of the following correctly describes the distribution of India's elephant population across states?
Assertion (A): The expansion of elephant range into Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra over the past two decades has created new human-elephant conflict zones.
Reason (R): Iron ore mining in Jharkhand and Odisha, combined with an El Niño-linked drought in the 1980s, displaced elephant herds from their traditional habitats.
Which of the following is correct?
Consider the following statements regarding India's environmental clearance process for projects affecting wildlife areas:
1.The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) operates under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
2.The Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife (SC-NBWL) is chaired by the Prime Minister.
3.Elephant corridors, lacking formal Protected Area status, are evaluated only through the discretionary scrutiny of the SC-NBWL and FAC.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Which of the following is the most significant structural limitation of India's current environmental clearance system in protecting elephant corridors?
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