Bhupender Yadav Chairs 21st Project Elephant Meeting Focusing on Human Elephant Conflict and Conservation.

On June 26, 2025, Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Bhupender Yadav chaired the 21st Steering Committee Meeting of Project Elephant at the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (IGNFA) in Dehradun. The high-level meeting convened officials, scientists, and experts to assess elephant conservation efforts and address human‑elephant conflict across India.

      - In his opening remarks, the Minister stressed the urgency of mitigating human-elephant conflict, noting its toll on lives and livelihoods. He emphasised that conservation must be community-driven, urging inclusion of local populations in planning, monitoring, and implementation of protection initiatives.

      - Bhupender Yadav also called for enhanced coordination with agencies such as Indian Railways, Ministry of Power, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), and mining developers. He highlighted efforts to reduce elephant deaths during train collisions through systematic railway stretch surveys and high-risk zone identification.

      - The Committee reviewed significant scientific progress: Phase‑I of the synchronized elephant population estimation in North‑Eastern states was completed with over 16,500 dung samples analysed. Additionally, 1,911 captive elephant DNA profiles were recorded from 22 states, enhancing monitoring and welfare planning.

Main Point :-   (i) Another primary focus was railway-related fatalities, with 3,452.4 km of sensitive tracks surveyed and 77 high-risk areas identified. The meeting released several knowledge resources—a mitigation report for elephant-train collisions, a 23-year human-elephant conflict study (Assam, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh), an advisory on safe tusk trimming, and the latest Trumpet newsletter.

      (ii) Looking ahead, organizers sketched an ambitious roadmap leading up to World Elephant Day (August 12, 2025) in Coimbatore, including Gaj Gaurav Awards. Key initiatives include finalizing the Nilgiri Elephant Conservation Plan by December 2025, launching a three-year elephant-tracking study in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, and evaluating reserve-level management performance with CAMPA support.

(iii) This meeting underlines India’s commitment to elephant conservation through an integrated strategy combining community engagement, scientific research, institutional coordination, and policy implementation under Project Elephant, launched in 1992 to preserve habitats, corridors and mitigate conflict with a landscape-level focus.