TN Elephant Conclave 2023 begins in Coimbatore
The two-day ‘Tamil Nadu Elephant Conclave 2023’ that will begin in Coimbatore on Friday will be centred around the theme ‘securing a better future for gentle giants’.
Forest Minister M. Mathiventhan inaugurated the conference in the presence of Minister of Housing and Urban Development S. Muthusamy at Globus Centre near Saravanampatti.
The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) has partnered with the State government to introduce its ‘Gaj Utsav’ campaign in Tamil Nadu as ‘Yaanai Thiruvizha’ at the event. Handbooks on camp elephant management, boundary night patrolling team prepared by the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) and a standard operating procedure (SOP) for orphaned elephant calf management will be released at the event.
Technical sessions on the first day include challenges and initiatives for conservation of the Asian elephant in south India by Vivek Menon, executive director of WTI; landscape management of elephant in India and future challenges by Raman Sukumar, honorary professor and national science chair, Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru; climate change and future of elephants by Deepak Bilgi by director of Department of Environment and Climate Change, Government of Tamil Nadu.
Supriya Sahu, additional chief secretary, Environment, Climate Change and Forest, Tamil Nadu, will moderate the session ‘field directors of tiger reserves in Tamil Nadu’. This will be followed by a session ‘meet the elephant whisperers of ATR and MTR’ in which mahouts and kavadis (assistants) will share their experiences.
Securing elephant corridors and migratory routes for conflict mitigation by N.V.K. Ashraf, senior advisor and chief veterinarian, WTI; ‘meet the elephant doctors of Tamil Nadu’ moderated by Akash Deep Baruah, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Project Tiger), a panel discussion on translocation of wild elephants – the Tamil Nadu experience; effective human-wildlife management – case study from Valparai by M. Ananda Kumar of Nature Conservation Foundation; and experience sharing on elephant management by field officials and anti-poaching watchers of the Department are among programmes on the second day.
Coimbatore District Collector Kranthi Kumar Pati, Coimbatore MP P.R. Natarajan, Kavundampalayam MLA P.R.G Arunkumar, PCCF and Head of Forest Force Subrat Mahopatra, PCCF and Chief Wildlife Warden Srinivas R. Reddy and Coimbatore Mayor Kalpana Anandakumar are among the dignitaries.
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