Gajah and Praja: Conservation, Control and Conflicts

The adivasi people living near the Orissa-Andhra Pradesh border face the challenge of having to live with elephants which, according to the Elephant Task Force, have been "displaced" because their home ranges and habitats in the Lakhari Valley Wildlife Sanctuary have been severely degraded. These pachyderms are liable to cause serious human-elephant conflicts in the new areas they move to. Though the task force's prescriptions to mitigate conflicts pay lip service to involving local communities in conservation, in essence they lean towards displacing the adivasis who have lived in the forests for centuries and now have the legal right to do so.