USE TECH TO SAVE FOREST RANGERS AND ELEPHANTS

ON Sunday, Prashant Palo, a 56-year-old forest range officer, was leading a team to drive away an elephant herd from villages in Odisha's Kalahandi district when a tusker chased him and trampled him to death.

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In August, H H Venkatesh, a retired forest guard in Karnataka, met the same fate when the animal he was trying to dart gored him. In a country where man-elephant conflict has escalated to alarming levels, the damage is on both sides. One of the major reasons behind the growing conflicts is a rapid fragmentation of the long-ranging animal's habitats. Mining, industrialisation and new road and rail networks pose a serious threat to the migration corridors of elephants. This has resulted in the loss of lives, increasing crop raids, property and livelihood damages, and retaliatory attacks across the country. The environment ministry says at least 1,581