Since 1987, large numbers of elephants from Dalma Hills, in East Singbhum district of Jharkhand, have been entering the densely populated districts of Midnapore and Bankura in West Bengal. Predictably, this has resulted in human-elephant conflict of enormous proportion.
 
In 2003, the Singhbhum Elephant Study was initiated by the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) to assess the probable reasons why wild elephants have been leaving the well-forested Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary in Jharkhand, and moving into locations wholly unsuited to these high-consuming animals. The study successfully identified the dissection of traditional transit paths - through Paschmi Singbhum in Jharkhand and into Keonjhar district of Orissa - as one of the reasons why the elephants had selected such unlikely places as post-monsoon habitat. It was the first such research on the dispersal behaviour of the Singbhum elephants

The ‘Corridor to Survival’ project initiated in May 2006, was a natural sequel to the Singhbhum Elephant Study. It was largely designed to: (i) identify the causes for disruption of the elephants’ transition paths through traditional use areas, (ii) map the Elephant Transit Paths (ETPs) of the recent past, (iii) identify present paths connecting northern Orissa with Jharkhand, and (iv) assess the habitat status in relation to biogeography of the use areas. The primary aim of the study was to develop a Management Plan for Elephant Landscape Design. This included the development of site-specific habitat management procedures for the re-creation of   lost transit paths, that would ensure the uninterrupted movement of elephants between the northern limits of their traditional distribution range at Dalma Hills in Jharkhand, to Keonjhar in Orissa.

This is no easy task. The elephants have to cross two canals near Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary in Jharkhand, railway crossings, human habitation, and finally a web of iron ore mines. But miraculously it is feasible, for there are still patches of forests with sufficient seasonal food through their traditional migration routes.

The present study has found that small groups of elephants have started venturing south of Dalma into the Seraikella Forest Division, and then further down towards the jungles of Saranda in Jharkhand, bordering the Orissa highlands. Unfortunately, here the elephants face a predicament worse than any in the past - the destruction of their traditional transit paths by open-cast iron ore mines. The recent rise in demand for iron ore in domestic as well as international markets has ensured the diversion of large patches of forests for mining. Presently, more than 100 leases are in operation in the northern mining belt of Keonjhar district in Orissa, in addition to other industrial units that have been set up to support the mines. The mining boom became apparent here in 2002, around the same time that the Olympics Games was announced in China. The world experienced an unprecedented growth in demand for finished steel, which in turn created a rise in demand for iron ore, the raw material need for steel manufacturing. Beneath the 1,500 km2 of well-forested land in the Keonjhar and Sundergarh districts of Orissa and the Paschimi Singhbum district of Jharkhand, lies an estimated 5 billion tons of high-grade iron ore.

In Jharkhand and Orissa, 2,000 and almost 5,000 hectares respectively, of prime Elephant habitat is now under the miners’ shovels, erasing all signs of the forest corridors that have been used by elephants for thousands of year. This has forced the wild elephants to move into areas where they have not been recorded in the recent past, and has resulted in a phenomenal rise in human-elephant conflict. The enormity of the threat to the survival of wild elephants in eastern India can be clearly seen by comparing records of elephant mortality, before and after the increase in mining activities in the region (see chart).

• Construction of elephant-friendly, transit ramps
• Construction of elephant-proof, energized fences and rubble walls
• Water Management, including water harvesting structures
• Grass plot development
• Habitat manipulation, including Eupatorium eradication
• Creation of forest protection squads and vigil huts
• Human resource development, including capacity building for forest personnel at the forest training college