Enhancing Elephant Connectivity While Mitigating Conflict: A Participatory Conservation Approach

The Kaziranga Landscape of Assam in northeast India is home to a diverse array of wildlife including an important population of approximately 1700 Asian elephants. This region is also home to tea estates within migratory corridors which play an integral role in maintaining connectivity for elephants but with the potential of causing human-elephant conflict. In order to maintain habitat connectivity and promote positive human-elephant relationships this project will work with communities to minimize negative interactions and hostile activities through trained elephant guardians. Elephant Guardians will engage with tea estate management and workers to teach best practices for peaceful coexistence and discourage behaviors that could trigger conflict. This participatory approach will help change overall community perception of elephants and serve as a model for a bottom-up approach to improving community-elephant relations.

IEF #1052

Project Years:2025

Project Partners:
Varun R. Goswami, Conservation Initiatives, India