Tamil Nadu's elephant warning system and gun abolition campaign receive national award

The voluntary surrender campaign for illegal country-made guns and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) based elephant warning system implemented for wildlife conservation in Tamil Nadu have received national recognition. Recently, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav distributed these awards.

A novel conservation campaign named 'Ozhippom Thuppakkiyai, Kaappom Yanaigalai' (Abolish illegal country-made guns, save elephants) was launched in the Hosur Forest Division in September 2022. This campaign was initiated following two consecutive deaths of elephants due to illegal shooting in the Anchetty and Jawalgiri ranges during 2022. A second intensive phase of this campaign was undertaken in August 2024.

According to then Wildlife Warden K. Karthikeyanina, instead of relying solely on legal enforcement, this campaign focused on community participation. For this purpose, social media awareness campaigns, newspaper publicity, distribution of leaflets, public announcements, motorcycle rallies, door-to-door awareness programmes, as well as meetings with Panchayat presidents and village elders were organised.

The Forest Department also announced that following the awareness campaign, intensive searches would be conducted in remote forest villages using sniffer dogs to find hidden weapons. People were informed that if any illegal weapon is found during raids, strict action will be taken under the Arms Act and the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. As a result of these efforts, a total of 239 illegal country-made guns were voluntarily surrendered.

Historically, this division was under the influence of the notorious poacher and smuggler Veerappan, which led to problems of illegal poaching here. Although systematic ivory poaching had decreased, country-made guns were still present in the forest boundary villages and were being used for poaching wildlife. Following this campaign, poaching via country-made guns has decreased and public trust and cooperation towards the Forest Department have increased. A special Jury Award from the Indian Forest Service Association (IFSA) and Indian Masterminds has been given for this initiative, which was received by K. Karthikeyanina, currently serving as the Forest Officer of Thanjavur district.

On the other hand, IFS officer S. Senbagapriya has been honoured with the 'Eco-Warrior' award for community-based conservation and scientific monitoring in the Mudumalai landscape. During April 2018 to February 2021, while serving as the Deputy Director of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, she supervised village resettlement programmes. In the first phase, 235 families were relocated, and in the second phase, 216 families out of 255 families were relocated. For the proposal of 168 families in the third phase, ₹1,680 lakh was received from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). No tiger deaths or poaching incidents were recorded during this period. She also provided weapons training to 85 field staff in collaboration with the Nilgiris district police. For these services, she received the WWF PATA Bag Mitra Award in the individual category in 2018. She is currently the Project Director of Nilgiris Tahr.

Additionally, N. Jayaraj has been awarded for the excellent use of technology in introducing an AI-based surveillance and early-warning system. According to a report by The Hindu, all these initiatives have proven to be significant in wildlife conservation.