Preserving the forest: Heroes of Bannerghatta National Park - By Jyothy Karat

Bannerghata National Park is situated at the northernmost tip of the Eastern Ghats in peninsular India. It is a sparsely protected area belonging to the reserves in Karnataka as well as the adjoining state of Tamil Nadu. 

According to Avinash Krishnan, the senior researcher at Arocha, an NGO working to conserve elephants, the Bannerghata National Park is largely absent from the collective consciousness of the people of Bangalore, leaving what he describes as the ‘forgotten forest’ and its creatures to their inevitable state of conflict.

Dilip Kumar, 28, was one of the field officers from Arocha who worked through this pandemic period. He has worked in BNP since 2012, conducting field research, helping the forest department mitigate human-elephant conflict here, and has been working around the clock for relief measures during the pandemic.

Bannerghata National Park is situated at the northernmost tip of the Eastern Ghats in peninsular India. It is a sparsely protected area belonging to the reserves in Karnataka as well as the adjoining state of Tamilnadu.

With the rising pressure from the human population and development in the region, conflict with the wild elephants living here has been escalating over the years. 

This year was the hardest. The elephants don’t care for the pandemic, nor do they stop for a lockdown. As they continued to mow down crops and raid crops of sustenance farmers, the forest department found themselves in the difficult position of not being able to feed their own staff to carry out the job at hand.

The women in the region suffer most from the consequences of human-elephant conflict in Bannerghatta National Park. They are actively involved in agriculture and also take care of their families, therefore they feel the burden much more when the crops are raided by the wild elephants. This also makes them less tolerant of the wild creatures that live around the villages.

The Forest watchers at the Kaaleshwari Anti-poaching Bannerghatta Camp. Bhagwatha Rao (36) and S.Sampagni (52) have been working for 14 years and 30 years respectively. Muniraju (30) and Kaalappa (30) have also been working with them over the last few years.

Dilip Kumar (left), a field biologist at Arocha goes for a forest patrol with the frontline staff at Harohalli, Bannerghatta National Park.

Dilip Kumar examines snakeskin found on the path during a patrol of the forest with his colleagues.

Dilip Kumar and Avinash Krishnan measure an elephant footprint to get a rough estimation of the height of the elephant they are tracking during the patrols.

Dilip Kumar on a night patrol tracking elephants reported to have entered a village in Laxmipuram, Hosur, in the Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape.

Villagers sit in tree houses in their fields for night vigil during elephant raids in Laxmipuram village, near the Bannerghatta National Park.

Field officers from Arocha gather information from villagers about the whereabouts of wild elephants seen in Laxmipuram village, near the Bannerghatta National Park. The presence of an elephant and its location is shared amongst the villagers and with the patrol officers from the forest department and Arocha.

In Laxmipuram village, most families grow Raagi millet for sustenance. The crop is harvested during the winter and the harvest becomes their staple food for the entire year.

When the fields are raided by elephants, these neatly stacked rows of millet are eaten, strewn around, destroyed, and rendered unusable.

Field officers from Arocha track wild elephants seen in Laxmipuram village, near the Bannerghatta National Park. The team discerns that the road sign was pushed over by the passing elephants.

After hours of patrolling, the officers from the forest department and Arocha gave up trying to locate (and ultimately chase away) the wild elephants that are a threat to the villagers and their crops. In the wee hours of the morning, however, elephants were reported to have raided a field after all.

A brief enquiry into its location revealed that all through the night of patrolling, the elephants were only a short distance away from the people hiding in the tapestry of the forgotten forest.