Muthoot, WWF-India tie-up for elephant project

The project is part of 'Muthoot Haathi Mera Saathi' corporate social responsibility initiative

The Muthoot Group, World Wide Fund for Nature - India (WWF-India) have jointly launched 'Friends for Life', an elephant conservation project for effective management of human-elephant conflict (HEC), and for protecting the habitats of Asian elephants across six states in India.

The project is part of 'Muthoot Haathi Mera Saathi' corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.

The tie-up would catalyse and strengthen the existing efforts for avoiding human-elephant conflicts across the identified states covering four priority landscapes and one priority site earmarked by WWF-India.

These include the North Bank landscape in Arunachal Pradesh; Kaziranga and Karbi-Anglong in Assam; Terai Arc landscape in Uttarakhand; Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and also some parts of northWest Bengal.

Ravi Singh, secretary general & CEO of WWF-India said the body had set up an electric fencing in Nilgiri north division of Tamil Nadu and collected secondary information on HEC from Uttarakhand and from South Wyanad forest division in Kerala.

Currently, ADS's (anti-depredation squads) have also been formed in three project locations- Doom Dooma, Majuli and Deepor Beel area in Assam.

Muthoot Group has also planned to complement the initiative with an online campaign on its social network platforms this month. They will also undertake awareness drives through their over 4,500 branches, a press release stated.