The elephant in India: numbers, corridors and conflict

LeadPrelims and MainsAugust 2026

Why in news

The Supreme Court on 17 August 2026 ordered a fresh national survey of elephant corridors and held that no State may block a traditional elephant route. Five days earlier, on World Elephant Day, the government set out the result of India's first DNA based count: 22,446 wild elephants.

22,446wild elephants in India, by the first DNA based count
nearly 60 per centof the world's wild Asian elephants that live in India
33Elephant Reserves, in 14 States
150validated elephant corridors

Background

The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is Endangered on the IUCN Red List, in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 and in Appendix I of CITES.
It is India's National Heritage Animal, declared in 2010.
Elephants live in herds led by the oldest female, the matriarch, and move over large ranges through the year in search of food and water.
The elephant is a keystone species: it disperses seeds and opens paths and clearings that other animals use.
Africa has two species, the savanna elephant and the forest elephant, both more threatened than they were a decade ago.

How India counts and protects elephants

Project Elephant, launched in 1992, is the centrally sponsored programme for elephants, their habitat and corridors, conflict and captive elephants.
Since 2023 it has been run together with Project Tiger by a single Project Tiger and Elephant Division of the Environment Ministry.
An Elephant Reserve is an administrative unit under Project Elephant and is not a category under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, so it carries no legal protection of its own.
The new count, the Synchronous All India Population Estimation of Elephants, identified individual elephants from the DNA in dung samples, replacing counts by sighting.

Corridors

An elephant corridor is a strip of habitat that connects two larger elephant habitats.
The 2023 assessment validated 150 corridors, most of them in the East Central region, and West Bengal has the largest number among States.
Nineteen cross State lines and six reach into Nepal, so one State cannot settle a route alone.
Corridors too have no protection in law unless they fall inside a protected area, which is why they are lost to roads, railways, canals and farms.

What the Supreme Court ordered

The Centre must resurvey the national map of corridors and report in eight weeks on removing obstructions.
No State may block a traditional route to deal with crop damage, since elephants move across States.
The Centre must check reports that fireballs, torches and spikes are still used to drive elephants away, which the Court banned in 2018.

Human elephant conflict

Conflict rises where habitat is broken up and herds are pushed into farms, and it kills both people and elephants.
Elephants die mainly from electrocution, train hits, poisoning and poaching.
On World Elephant Day the government released a Regional Action Plan on conflict for the southern States and 30 Giant Steps for elephant conservation.
Invasive plants such as Lantana camara crowd out fodder inside forests, which is one reason herds leave them; a project in Assam is clearing them and turning the biomass into biochar.

The international side

CITES Appendix I bars international commercial trade in the Asian elephant and its ivory.
MIKE, Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants, is the CITES programme that tracks elephant deaths at chosen sites in Africa and Asia.
World Elephant Day is observed on 12 August.

The way forward

Give corridors legal protection, by notifying them under the Wild Life (Protection) Act or as ecologically sensitive areas.
Build crossings on roads, railways and canals that cut through corridors, and plan new lines around them.
Settle conflict across States, through joint plans for shared herds, since an elephant driven out of one State enters the next.
Pay compensation quickly for crops and lives, so that farmers do not turn to electric fences and poison.

Prelims facts

Asian elephant: Endangered, Schedule I, CITES Appendix I, National Heritage Animal.
Project Elephant began in 1992; there are 33 Elephant Reserves in 14 States.
The East Central region has the most corridors; West Bengal has the most among States.
The count of 22,446 is the first made from DNA in dung samples.
An Elephant Reserve has no legal status under the Wild Life (Protection) Act.