The pachydermist

Wildlife is important, but humans need to be considered too, Asian elephant expert Raman Sukumar tells Indulekha Aravind.

What if the elephant population in India goes up to 100,000? What would you do then?” Not the kind of question one might expect to hear these days amid the hue and cry over the endangered Asian elephant, that too from an elephant conservationist. But one has to sit up and take note because the said conservationist is considered to be one of the foremost authorities on the Asian elephant — not merely a passionate speaker or high-profile green warrior but a hard-nosed scientist with over three decades of experience in the subject.

Even in appearance, Raman Sukumar, chairman of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Sciences in Bangalore, is more scientist than Jungle Jim, a bespectacled, erudite personage who pairs trousers and shirt with Reebok sneakers.

It is perhaps because he is a trained ecologist that Sukumar advises a balanced approach when it comes to saving the Asian elephant, now numbering around 27,000 in India — a figure Sukumar says is an increase over the past 25 years. “There are some landscapes where they certainly need to be protected. But in places where elephants are wreaking havoc, I don’t think you can expect the common man to just sit back and bear the consequences,” he says.

Sukumar’s statement stems from experience of seeing crops ravaged by elephants. Southern Bengal, he says, is a classic example where there is hardly any habitat left for the elephant, with the result that they hide in whatever forest there is during the day and then emerge at night to go on a rampage. “When I started my research in the 1980s, the number of people killed by elephants in a year was 150 across the country. This has now gone up to 450,” he says, adding that this is mainly due to the increase in local elephant population in certain pockets in south India and due to the pressure on their habitat in areas in West Bengal and Jharkhand because of human encroachment. And though elephant poaching has eased, it remains a cause for concern.

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The 56-year-old began his research in elephant-human conflicts in the early 1980s when, after a Master’s degree in botany from the University of Madras, he enrolled for a PhD in ecology at IISc under the guidance of renowned ecologist Madhav Gadgil, currently a member of the National Advisory Council and founder of the department Sukumar now chairs. A nature-lover from adolescence, Sukumar chose elephants as his research topic as a result of a chance remark by his mentor Gadgil. “He happened to mention casually one day that conflicts between elephants and people were increasing and that nobody had looked into it. The word elephants caught my attention, ” says Sukumar. What followed was nearly three years of field work in the Biligirirangan Hills — Veerappan territory — and a thesis submitted in 1985 that is considered a pioneering study in elephant-human conflicts in the country.

He then went on to help design the country’s first biosphere in the Nilgiris. “My research expanded to studying forest dynamics and climate change, but I always maintain that it’s the elephant that led me to these other areas... much like how one prays to Ganesha before beginning something,” says Sukumar who has just finished his fourth book, The Story of Asia’s Elephants, which traces the ecological and cultural history of the Asian elephant right from the Stone Age, and will release in December. The raft of awards Sukumar has won, including the UK’s Whitley Gold Award, stand as testimony to his work, as does his membership of innumerable panels and task forces on the Asian elephant, both government-initiated and those set up by international bodies.

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One method Sukumar and his team have devised to learn more about the native elephant and keep a tab on them is the GPS-enabled collar, an experiment being carried out with three wild elephants in Bengal. A mobile phone SIM card in the collar can be programmed to send messages at regular intervals alerting forest officials of the elephant’s whereabouts — particularly useful if it’s crop-raiding season. “But elephants are powerful creatures and can tear off these collars even though these weigh 10-15 kg,” he says, pointing to the remains of one such collar in a corner of the office. Battery life is another challenge but one he is certain technology will help overcome.

“One needs a suite of options when it comes to conservation, ranging from conserving elephant corridors to more simple deterrents like the use of chilli paste and community-based guarding of crops.” Elephant corridors — narrow stretches of land elephants use to move from one large habitat to another — are expensive, particularly if people living near them need to be rehabilitated but that is the cost of conservation, he says.

And this might have animal rights activists up in arms, but Sukumar believes that a few elephants also need to be kept in captivity. “Historically, we have always had elephants in captivity, so when that was no longer allowed, it changed the entire dynamics. The solution lies in having proper welfare measures in place for elephants in captivity and ensuring they are implemented,” he says.

“Conservation is partly compromise. I don’t think you can take a hard-line view that it’s only elephants and tigers that matter and not people. Nor can you take the other view that everything should be destroyed because we want development and mining. There has to be a balance.” That’s passion with pragmatism for you.