Local champions helping elephants and people share the landscape

Becoming a Green Corridor Champion offered him an opportunity to continue learning while contributing to the protection of a landscape he knows well.

Today, Anil monitors elephant movement and threats to wildlife habitat, including expanding agricultural land, construction, fencing, and other pressures associated with growing human populations and infrastructure.

An important part of his work is helping other people understand why conflict between people and elephants occurs and what communities can do to reduce it. Through awareness activities with schoolchildren and young people, Anil encourages greater understanding of the wildlife with which communities share their surroundings.

This combination of observation, education, and community engagement is central to the Green Corridor Champions initiative. People who spend time in these landscapes can recognise changes as they happen, identify emerging threats, and help conservation organisations better understand what is taking place on the ground.

For Ravi Yadav, a Green Corridor Champion working in Assam, an interest in wildlife began in childhood.

While other children watched cartoons, Ravi remembers choosing wildlife programmes on television. As he grew older, that interest led him to volunteer with the forest department and participate in wildlife rescue activities, initially focusing on snakes before becoming increasingly interested in other animals.

Elephants particularly captured his attention.

The more Ravi learned about them, the more he came to understand their importance to the wider landscape. Elephants create trails through forests that are used by other wildlife, disperse seeds as they move, and influence the ecosystems they inhabit. Ravi describes elephants as animals that help create the forest itself.

As a Green Corridor Champion, Ravi now monitors three elephant movement routes. Two face significant pressures from railways, national highways, increasing traffic, and expanding human settlements. When traditional movement routes become difficult or dangerous for elephants to navigate, animals may move into surrounding communities, increasing risks for both people and wildlife.

Ravi works with communities to build understanding of why allowing elephants safe passage matters. He has also advocated for measures such as speed restrictions in areas where roads and wildlife movement routes intersect, working with government agencies and other stakeholders to reduce risks to elephants and other animals.