Wildlife conservation in Assam over the past four decades, since the early 1980s, is marked by remarkable conservation stories, such as the successful conservation of the natural habitats of the Golden Langur across the Assam Duars and the conservation of the largest rainforest of the Brahmaputra Valley, which saved the biodiversity-rich home of many endangered species, including the Hoolock Gibbon, White-winged Wood Duck, Asian Elephant, several species of wild cats, and other fauna and flora. These four decades have placed Assam in a significant position of national as well as global recognition for biodiversity conservation.
Tracing common roots, these trailblazing conservation stories were initiated and led through decades of grassroots-based conservation movements in Assam, which flourished due to the steadfast efforts of Nature’s Beckon in strengthening a participatory drive for the permanent protection of many large tracts of natural forests and important wildlife habitats as wildlife sanctuaries and national parks in Assam. These Nature’s Beckon-led, grassroots-based conservation movements have paved the way for the future conservation of many wildlife species and their habitats in Northeastern India. This has also contributed to finding long-term solutions to difficult wildlife problems, like the decades-long man-elephant crisis in Assam.
Nature’s Beckon’s continued efforts to integrate an inclusive approach to wildlife conservation within contemporary Indian society have succeeded in making the cause of wildlife conservation a common agenda for the people of Assam, which has earned support and participation from common citizens, grassroots communities, intellectuals, social leaders, and others. This has brought transformative changes in socio-political commitment to issues related to wildlife conservation in Assam. A glaring example of this was witnessed in the recent notification of the Assam Government in July 2026 regarding the payment of crop-damage compensation worth Rs 8,000 per bigha to farmers who face crop damage due to elephant depredation in Assam.
The declaration by Forest Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah regarding this political intervention came as a historic turning point for Asian Elephant conservation in Assam. This cabinet decision came as a long-awaited corrective measure to end the collective use of violence against wild elephants in the state, which had become prevalent under faulty defensive methods involving the use of firecrackers and offensive techniques propagated by the state forest department among grassroots villagers in the name of wildlife management for years. These aggressive methods have created friction in the traditional legacy of the compassionate bond shared between the people of Assam and elephants for ages. This situation has been aptly termed the ‘Man-Elephant Crisis’ by Sri Soumyadeep Datta, according to whom this crisis is wholly attributed to unsustainable human activities across pristine elephant habitats in Assam, with the colonial exploitation of Assam’s rich forests for tea plantations being the biggest blow to elephant populations in Assam and Northeast India.
Soumyadeep Datta has strongly opposed the use of firecrackers and other violent methods against wild elephants for a very long time. He has been raising objections to the faulty practices used by the state forest department in the name of mitigating man-elephant conflicts in Assam and has repeatedly appealed for the permanent protection of natural forests and wetlands for elephant conservation in Assam. He speaks about the significance of the recently announced elephant-depredation-related crop-damage compensation, which will eventually reduce conflicts between grassroots communities and wild elephants across Assam.
He said, “Earlier, the crop-raiding wild elephants were pushed back by farmers from one cropland to the next, leading to the loss of cultivated crops and paddy to elephants over a large area. This is how elephants used to damage paddy crops over a large area in a region. We have been saying this from Nature’s Beckon for a long time that elephants should not be pushed back from the croplands; they should be allowed to eat paddy while the government can compensate the farmers for the crop damage. Now, the Forest Minister, Sri Jayanta Malla Barua, has made an important announcement regarding an intervention to provide crop-damage compensation to the farmers. He has announced that farmers will be paid Rs 8,000 per bigha for crop damage due to elephant depredation. This is a judicious compensation for the farmers in Assam. This intervention will greatly benefit the farmers as well as the wild elephants. Nature’s Beckon had a long-standing demand to implement this compensatory crop-damage support for the farmers, which will stop the prevalent practice of chasing elephants from the croplands using firecrackers, etc.”
Soumyadeep Datta also provides a glimpse into the anomalies related to the misuse of funds earmarked for Asian Elephant conservation by the state forest department under Project Elephant, as he continues to state: “I had repeatedly appealed for this intervention during my tenure as a member of the Government of India’s Elephant Task Force, but the then governments and political leaders of that time never implemented this. I think this is a significant step towards mitigating the problems of our people and the wild elephants. Earlier, a nexus of corrupt forest officials and politicians used to siphon off funds worth crores that were earmarked for Project Elephant. They used to falsely depict the investment of these funds in the distribution of firecrackers, kerosene, etc. From our RTI, we came to know that they burst firecrackers worth Rs 30 lakh in Goalpara district. So, this intervention is very significant; it is a landmark decision that will be welcomed by our farmers. I think those with vested interests, those who are neither on the side of the elephants nor on the side of the farmers, will stand against this decision. We, Nature’s Beckon, welcome this landmark decision of the Forest Minister, which will immensely benefit the farmers and wild elephants in Assam.”
His words speak about Nature’s Beckon’s continued efforts to find a reconciliatory path to solve the problem of the man-elephant crisis in Assam, which is caused mainly by shrinking natural forests, grasslands, and wetlands across Assam and throughout the natural range of Asian elephants in the Northeastern states of India.
The Asian Elephant populations of Northeast India extend across the eastern Himalayan foothills from northern Bengal into Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and Meghalaya. This is a transboundary distribution that is contiguous with the forests of Bhutan, Bangladesh, and possibly Myanmar, supporting approximately 9,500 elephants in the region. Assam, with more than 5,000 elephants, is one of the last strongholds of the Asian Elephant population in the Northeast, and hence the conservation of existing elephant habitats across Assam is crucial for Asian Elephant conservation in Asia.
The conservation of a large population of long-ranging, large herbivores like the Asian Elephant requires a multipronged approach involving community participation, wetland conservation, grassland preservation, restoration of fragmented corridors, and, most importantly, the conservation of natural forests across its natural range throughout Northeast India. The destruction of elephant habitats in different hill states of Northeastern India has forced elephants to remain confined to certain pockets of surviving natural habitats within their natural range in the region. This further accentuates the importance of effective and holistic elephant conservation measures across the thriving elephant habitats of Assam.
In Assam, the permanent protection of elephant habitats by upgrading the legal status of forests from Reserve Forests to Wildlife Sanctuaries is the urgent need of the hour, while it is also very important to preserve the surviving wetlands to sustain the natural food sources of these elephant populations and thus check the rise of elephant depredation in human-inhabited areas in and around the elephant habitats of Assam.
Nature’s Beckon’s elephant conservation programme, titled ‘Ganesh Mangal Yatra’, which was launched in 2021, has effectively contributed to building awareness among grassroots people who live on the frontline of elephant habitats in Assam. This programme sensitised people regarding their role in achieving the goals of holistic conservation of Asian elephants and their habitats in Assam, where we have to collectively fight the challenges of rampant encroachment, deforestation, and conversion of forest lands across traditional elephant habitats due to a lack of concrete forest conservation measures in many elephant habitats of Assam.
This programme also created awareness regarding the traditional roots of our indigenous cultures, according to which we have always revered elephants as the incarnation of Lord Ganesha. Ancient historical canons, traditional literature, the archaeological remains of our empires, and our religious places speak volumes about the glory of elephants in our heritage. Nature’s Beckon is making every effort to heal the wounded relationship between the Assamese people and Asian elephants, which has inflicted pain and misery on both species over the past decades.
Nature’s Beckon has successfully built a participatory approach to elephant conservation, where the people of Assam, as well as the government and elected representatives, have come together to find lasting solutions for Asian elephant conservation through a robust model based on habitat protection, community participation for peaceful coexistence with elephants, and judicious government support for the loss of crops, property, and lives incurred by grassroots communities due to elephant depredation.
The recent political interventions by the Government of Assam have immensely contributed to this participatory approach to elephant conservation in Assam. These interventions under the leadership of the Chief Minister of Assam, Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma, and Forest Minister Sri Jayanta Malla Barua, including returning large tracts of forest land to elephant populations in Goalpara after the stringent eviction drive to free encroached forests in western Assam earlier in 2026, and the latest notification regarding crop-damage compensation for farmers affected by elephant depredation, have set the path for a decisive turn towards effective elephant conservation in Assam.
These interventions will truly contribute to holistic Asian Elephant conservation in Assam when we succeed in protecting the surviving elephant habitats in different parts of the state. Some of these habitats remain threatened and call for immediate protection, such as the proposed Pancharatna Wildlife Sanctuary and the proposed Ajagar Wildlife Sanctuary, which includes the entire area of Urpad Beel. These two proposed wildlife sanctuaries constitute the last surviving vestiges of natural elephant habitats in Goalpara district of Assam, where the lost forests once harboured one of the biggest elephant populations in India. It is ironic that the present Goalpara district, with its rich history of forests, forest-related culture, folklore, and heritage, is yet to get its first protected area. Goalpara is inseparably connected with the traditional forest history of Assam, but today it is known for the rising toll of elephant depredation and the rampant loss of forest cover in the district.
This predicament of Goalpara epitomises the complete lack of conservation efforts to preserve the lush forests and biodiversity of the area by successive governments in Assam. The present state government of Assam has positively responded to Nature’s Beckon’s appeal for the declaration of the Pancharatna Wildlife Sanctuary and the Ajagar Wildlife Sanctuary to save these last relics of elephant habitats in Goalpara. Legal protection for these two forest areas, along with the permanent protection of Urpad Beel, the biodiversity-rich largest wetland in Goalpara, which is integral to the landscape of the proposed Ajagar Wildlife Sanctuary, is very important for Asian Elephant conservation in this part of Assam. These proposed wildlife sanctuaries of Goalpara form an important part of the extended elephant habitats in western Assam.
It is noteworthy that India has nearly 60% of the world’s Asian Elephant population, though the current distribution represents only 3.5% of its historical range, which once extended over a large landmass across the Indian subcontinent. The Asian Elephant is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, in India, and is categorised as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It is facing threats due to habitat loss, fragmentation of forests, poaching, loss of wetlands and grasslands across its natural range in the present world. Apart from this, another major reason for the plight of Asian elephants is the lack of proper conservation measures across their habitats in different parts of Asia owing to socio-economic and political disparities in these Asian countries.
In this context, we Indians have a big role to play in ensuring the survival and flourishing of the gentle giants in our country. This places a great onus of responsibility on the shoulders of the Assamese people to protect and respect wild elephants and their homes in Assam. In this context, the innovative thoughts and vision of Indian naturalists and environmental activists like Soumyadeep Datta have shown a unique approach to elephant conservation in Asia. Grassroots-based, participatory conservation of elephants could be a ray of hope for Asian Elephant conservation in other parts of Asia as well.
Moreover, it is well discernible that the future of Asian elephants will hugely depend on the protection of their natural habitats across Assam, other Northeastern states, and the eastern Himalayas through concerted efforts for transboundary, grassroots-based elephant conservation programmes among the Indian states and also in cooperation with other elephant-range countries of Asia.
On the occasion of World Elephant Day, I join everyone in solemn prayers for the well-being of elephants, for the safety of their homes, and for the cultures that have thrived on the blessings of these gentle giants of this planet.
Novanita Sharma is an environment activist and writer based in Guwahati. She can be contacted at [email protected].
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Northeast Now.