The remover of obstacles

Human-wildlife conflict is coming at a terrible cost to elephants. Our World Environment Day Special

On World Environment Day I want to speak about how we treat elephants, the embodiment of Lord Ganesha. For years, India has been struggling with human-wildlife conflict. In three years between 2015-2018, human-elephant conflict caused 373 elephant deaths. By unnatural causes, including electrocution and poaching.

The Asian elephant, also called Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus Elephas and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia

Easing conflicts

On my last trip to Coorg, around coffee plantations, I saw electric fencing designed to keep elephants out. Many private lands are illegally electrically fenced. Deaths caused by electrocution stood at 226, contributing to over 60 per cent of deaths in 2015.

It’s not that there aren’t solutions. Experts have suggested we have to bring in community participation. Suggestions include constructing barriers, solar powered electric fences, and bio-fencing using cactus and boundary walls, to prevent the entry of elephants into agricultural land. Rather than insidious exploding bombs hidden inside pineapple.

*The Asian elephant is endangered and its population has declined by at least 50 percent over the last three elephant generations, over seven decades*

Travels with the elephant

So, how can we get out kids to get more involved and care for them in a humane way? I visited the Dubare Elephant Camp and I’m sad that there is still so much we can do to create humane experiences. It was a beautiful setting and magnificent elephants, all who participate in Mysore’s stunning Dusshera procession, but they had them chained and used metal picks to poke them behind the year.

Last year I visited Chiang Mai and an ethical elephant camp. The elephants were oddball. Abandoned and adopted, there were females in majority and an adorable baby. The elephants could loll around as they pleased and they actually chased dad across the field. We fed them and bathed them, and they didn’t need to be chained or prodded. And I wish we had such an experience in India where we could view these magnificent beings without instilling fear in them.

*There are estimated to be approximately 440,000 elephants left in the world*

I recommend you read late Mark Shand’s epochal Travels on My Elephant. He chronicled his journey on Tara, a female elephant he bought. Travelling 750 miles from Konarak, on the Bay of Bengal, they ambled along to the Sonepur cattle fair. The story had a happy ending. She finally settled in retirement bliss at the Kipling Camp in Kanha National Park, at an eco-dwelling run by his friends. He started the charity the Elephant Family, a charity that is protecting the Asian elephant and their habitat. A few years ago, they held the delightful elephant parade in Bombay a few years ago and two years ago we did a piece on them.

We need to rethink what does development mean to us, and at what cost, to save the elephant.

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Neeti Mehra is an award-winning, multidimensional communications professional and brand consultant with 20+ years of experience in bringing stories to life. She works as an independent storyteller at the intersection of sustainability, ecology and people, shaping the voice of homegrown and international brands. In 2007, she founded Beejliving, a multi-disciplinary platform that records our living traditions, making them accessible and relevant to a young, curious audience. Through the lens of modernity, she interprets ancient practices, showing there is an alternate, viable path to living a fast-paced, burnt-out life. In 2024, she was featured on the cover of The Week magazine's health supplement for being the leading voice in advocating slow living in India. In February, she launched the #BeejLivingPowerCircle a B2B platform targeted to help conscious businesses in India scale.

Neeti has partnered on projects with leading global brands such as Marriott International, Jaipur Rugs, AB InBev, South African Tourism and the India Wine Awards. She is a former editor with FICCI’s India Travel, LuxeBook, and Indian Express Newspapers.
She has been published in over 60 global publications such as Lonely Planet, Vogue, Condé Nast Traveller, GQ, The Hindu, Business Traveller UK, The Spruce, Treehugger and The Times of India, writing about responsible luxury and sustainable living.
A Technical Accountant, Neeti has a Post Graduate Certificate in Yoga & Tantra and Indian Aesthetics from Jnanapravaha. She has completed a CSR workshop with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. A student of Vedic studies since the past six years, she has also been studying Sanskrit. She has studied traditional knowledge of Ayurveda, Jyotish and Tantra with world-renowned Ayurvedic practitioner, Dr Robert Svoboda. A wine lover, she finished her WSET Level 1 award in wine with a perfect score.