European Union

La 4e édition du Salon africain du commerce interafricain (IATF 2025), organisée à Alger, met cette année un accent particulier sur le secteur automobile. Plusieurs […]

L’article Fiat, Chery, Hyundai… Les modèles qui marquent l’IATF 2025 à Alger est apparu en premier sur .

Whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza can only be settled by courts, according to the EU executive

Elephants at the Kappukadu elephant rehabilitation center in Kottoor.

By Bharath Thampi
NEW DELHI, Sep 5 2025 (IPS)

In the early part of this year, two deaths in Kerala garnered major media attention. A farmer in Wayanad and a female plantation worker in Idukki were killed in two separate events, within a matter of a few days, by wild elephants.

Arikomban, another wild elephant, has become a media favorite recently due to his brushes with human settlements near his habitat. Named so because of his love for ari (rice), the elephant had been relocated from Kerala to Tamil Nadu in 2023 following constant protests from people who also claimed him to be ‘life-threatening.’ Kerala’s news outlets widely covered Arikomban’s relocation.

These aren’t one-off cases in Kerala, which has seen a spike in human–wildlife conflict, especially involving elephants.

According to a news report, 451 people have been killed in wildlife conflicts in the past five years alone in the state, with 102 of them caused by elephants.

However, wildlife biologists and environmentalists have been at odds with the narratives promoted by the media and society regarding what constitutes conflict.

“I think we shouldn’t be using the terminology ‘wildlife conflict’ itself. I would prefer addressing it as ‘negative wildlife interaction,’” says Dr. P.S. Easa, who holds a PhD on Elephant Ecology and Behavior and is a member of the National Board for Wildlife and the IUCN, Asian Elephant Specialist Group.

The conflict between wild animals and humans has been going on for centuries, and what we witness in the current era has been influenced by the transformation in the behavior of both these groups, as well as humans’ perception towards wildlife in general, he adds.

In Kerala’s social framework, the rising phenomenon of human–elephant conflict takes on a much deeper and more complex meaning than the broader topic of conflict with wildlife. Elephants have been an integral part of Kerala’s culture and tradition for centuries—domesticated not just for heavy labor but also as part of temple festivals. In the last few decades, machines have replaced elephants in much of the labor environment in the state, yet the land giants continue to be a part of the festival parades. Animal behavioral experts and activists have been consistently raising their voices against this practice in this century, citing the need to treat elephants as solely wild animals.

Easa refuses to even use the term “domesticated” for them.

“Captive elephants are the only right way to address them in this age and time,” he says.

In 2024 alone, there had been nine reported deaths in Kerala by such captive elephants. The Hindu reported six such deaths, including an elephant mahout, within the first two months of this year. Although there have been stricter rules and regulations in recent years on using captive elephants for temple festivals, they have mostly been restricted to paper. The religious nature of the festivals that these elephants are made to be a part of makes the topic even more sensitive, and political parties tend to stay away from addressing the issue.

Kerala’s elephant reserves have been categorized mainly into four regions, namely Wayanad, Nilambur, Anamudi, and Periyar. Periyar Reserve had the highest count of elephants, followed by the Anamudi Reserve. According to the Kerala Government’s Forest Statistics and the report of the ‘Wild Elephants Census of Kerala,’ the four reserves have a combined total extent of 11,199.049 sq. km., out of which only 1,576.339 sq. km. is assessed to be devoid of elephant population. According to a 2024 official assessment, Kerala had an elephant population of just under 1800, a decline of more than 100 from the previous year.

As Kerala’s elephant reserves border the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, natural factors that affect the elephant population, like extreme drought and heavy, abrupt rainfall, influence the elephants’ migration across the states during the year.

In Kerala, particularly, shrinking forest habitats caused by deforestation and the increasing presence of human settlements in regions historically occupied by elephant populations, coupled with climate change and the invasive plant species erasing the elephants’ natural food sources, are some of the factors causing unnatural elephant migration, according to experts, and as a consequence, resulting in frequent interactions with humans.

The phrase “descent of wildlife into human settlements” itself is a misnomer, Eesa says.

“In almost all such cases, human settlements had crossed over to those places where the wildlife had existed peacefully before. Wayanad and Idukki are classic examples of this.”

“There was a report that I had come across a while ago—of an ‘elephant attack’ that happened in Sholayar Forest Reserve. Look at the irony of that news. It’s a forest reserve—the habitat belongs to the elephant, not the people who were driving through it. What I’m saying is, every time an elephant conflict is reported, you need to dissect all the circumstances surrounding it. Where—was it within the jungle or outside it? When was it, during the daytime or at night? And how? What were the circumstances leading up to the interaction?” he explains.

The drastic increase in food waste owing to tourism in Kerala has been another factor for wild animals encroaching into human spaces lately. Elephants, wild boars, and monkeys have been observed to have come to human settlements to feed on the food waste.

There is no one, foolproof method to resolve the human–elephant conflict, scientists opine. Easa points out that several techniques that had been fruitful in African countries proved ineffective when used in countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

A mahout is seen riding a captive elephant. Kerala continues to make use of elephants for temple festivals and parades.

Wildlife biologist Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan, in an interview given to Mongabay in 2023, suggests five main long-term measures that will help mitigate human-elephant conflict. This includes initiating long-term studies to understand elephant movements and spatiotemporal patterns of conflict, which will help ascertain where and how interventions are required; tracking areas of elephant movement and identifying regions of intense use while installing alert lights at vantage points that can be triggered in case of elephant sightings; raising awareness among local populations to discourage feeding elephants or unwanted interactions; training local rapid response teams to prevent negative interactions and indiscriminate drives; and fitting satellite collars on elephants that frequently cause issues.

Kerala also has an elephant rehabilitation center established in Kottoor, Thiruvananthapuram, for rescuing, rehabilitating, and protecting both captive and wild elephants. The state, like other forest reserves in India, has historically chosen to turn many of the captured conflict-making elephants into ‘Kumkis’ (a Kumki elephant is a specially trained and domesticated elephant used in rescue operations and to train other wild elephants and manage wildlife conflict).

Apart from the above, one of the most effective measures that has been implemented in Kerala is through the Wayanad Elephant Conflict Mitigation Project by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). The project, first initiated in 2002–2003 by WTI, has evolved into a successful model for tackling human–elephant conflict in Kerala. The model has focused on relocating human settlements from places identified as ‘elephant corridors’ in the Wayanad district of Kerala. Wayanad, spanning a total of 2,131 sq. km., has an elephant reserve spread over 1,200 sq. km., with an elephant density of 0.25 elephants/sq. km.

Shajan M.A., a Senior Field Officer with WTI who handles the project currently, tells me, “Our method is to buy such sensitive land from the people, including both tribal and other communities, and relocate them to safer regions, away from wildlife conflict.” Ultimately, WTI hands over the purchased land to the Kerala Forest Department.

In regions like the Tirunelli–Kudrakote elephant corridor, the human–elephant conflict had escalated so much that it had resulted in several human deaths. For the communities, leaving a land they had occupied for decades and considered home is never easy, Shajan acknowledges. But of all the tried and tested methods to deal with the human–wildlife conflict, this approach has been the most effective in the long run, he points out.

Shajan also muses on the question of what exactly comprises a ‘conflict.’

“Conflict can hold different meanings. From a monkey stealing food from the house to a tiger or an elephant attack on a human, even leading to deaths, it’s all considered a human–wildlife conflict. Sadly, we, as a society, tend to be reactive once it transforms into a conflict and place the blame wholly on the wildlife.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Rampant Tourism, Climate Change Threatens Varkala’s Unique Geodiversity
• Mussel Divers in Kerala Face Livelihood Loss, with Species Habitat Under Threat

The personalised medicines strategy could set an example for the rest of Europe, enabling a new generation of innovative treatments at scale

Rayner disclosed on Wednesday that she had underpaid on the so-called stamp duty on a flat in southern England

Réalisateur visionnaire et « Artiste du peuple », avec ses 14 longs métrages et 10 documentaires, il laisse derrière lui une œuvre majeure qui a façonné l'identité culturelle albanaise.

- Le fil de l'Info / Cinéma yougoslave, Culture et éducation, Courrier des Balkans, Albanie

Réalisateur visionnaire et « Artiste du peuple », avec ses 14 longs métrages et 10 documentaires, il laisse derrière lui une œuvre majeure qui a façonné l'identité culturelle albanaise.

- Le fil de l'Info / Cinéma yougoslave, Culture et éducation, Courrier des Balkans, Albanie

The country's right-wing coalition government is split on the question of recognising Palestinian statehood

Plenary session, Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The high performance computer, called Jupiter, will also provide AI training capacity to European companies

This week's summit in Tianjin showed that many of the world's largest economies still want to trade with Russia - and that Europe's plan to force the Gremlin in the Kremlin to the negotiating table is doomed

Fatou Diene, an oyster farmer in the mangroves near Dionewar Island, Senegal. Across the globe, farmers are adopting low-emission practices, restoring degraded lands, and protecting biodiversity. With the right support, they can do much more. Credit: ©FAO/Sylvain Cherkaoui

By Kaveh Zahedi
ROME, Sep 5 2025 (IPS)

Despite absorbing a quarter of climate-related losses and having the potential to reduce one-third of global emissions, agrifood systems receive less than 8% of climate finance. This imbalance threatens progress in addressing global climate challenges. If we’re serious about solutions, we need to start where the impact—and the promise—is greatest: investing in the systems that feed the world.

As countries move forward along the Baku to Belem Roadmap and the collective goal of mobilizing $1.3 trillion in climate finance by 2030, a critical juncture is fast approaching. At the upcoming Standing Committee on Finance Forum, to be held at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, governments will have a chance to correct this imbalance – and seize an opportunity that is already yielding results.

No serious path to achieve climate goals exists without agriculture. Yet despite this central role, the sector remains chronically overlooked in climate finance strategies and often is associated only with high perceived risks instead of its potential.

No serious path to achieve climate goals exists without agriculture. Yet despite this central role, the sector remains chronically overlooked in climate finance strategies and often is associated only with high perceived risks instead of its potential

The result is a persistent underinvestment in one of the few areas where mitigation, adaptation, and development gains can be achieved together—and at scale. Strategic investments in agriculture can strengthen national resilience, deliver measurable climate mitigation, reduce inequality, and expand economic opportunities.

Small-scale producers, who grow a third of the world’s food, received less than 1% of climate finance in the most recent two-year window. Livestock systems, which are major contributors to methane emissions, drew just 2% of climate development funding in 2023.

This gap represents a missed opportunity to accelerate progress on climate, food security, and livelihoods – especially in vulnerable regions.

We know what works. Between 2000 and 2022, emissions per value of agricultural production declined by 39%. Smarter, more efficient food systems are already taking shape. While current emissions from the agriculture sector are a major concern, these early successes demonstrate the potential of large-scale investments.

When we invest in agrifood systems, we are doing more than reducing emissions. We are expanding access to nutritious food, creating jobs in rural communities, increasing productivity, and restoring ecosystems. These are compound gains, spanning development and climate priorities alike.

Unlocking this potential will require deploying the full range of financing tools. The $1.3 trillion target cannot be met through public finance alone. It will require a mix of public, private, and domestic resources, aligned with countries’ needs and grounded in strong partnerships. Bilateral and multilateral finance will continue to play an important role.

Recent debt relief initiatives, including those from the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, are also expected to help countries create the fiscal space needed to prioritize agrifood transformation.

The private sector is beginning to respond. From 2016 to 2021, climate-focused blended finance transactions targeting smallholder farmers grew from 26% to 36%, with 60% achieving both adaptation and mitigation benefits.

But this momentum must be sustained and expanded. Private investors still face real barriers: limited data, unclear policies, and a lack of investment-ready projects. Initiatives like FAO’s Green Climate Fund Readiness Programme are helping countries close those gaps and attracting greater capital into agricultural transformation.

Carbon markets offer another avenue to unlock value. Properly designed, they can reward farmers and rural communities for climate-positive practices. But current structures in voluntary carbon markets fall short.

As of 2023, agrifood projects made up just 1% of credits from voluntary carbon markets, with three-quarters concentrated in five countries. Smallholders and low-income economies are effectively excluded.

New global mechanisms under the Paris Agreement Article 6 offer a chance to reset this system. Countries need support to prepare robust measurement frameworks, reliable data and inventories, and inclusive governance. With the support from the Global Environment Facility in over 70 countries, this foundation is already being laid.

There are also powerful opportunities in optimizing how existing public funds are spent. Modelling in 6 Sub-Saharan countries shows that reallocations across different policy-support measures can generate additional agrifood GDP growth points, create almost a million off-farm jobs, lift more than 2 million people out of poverty, and reduce more than 700,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

This is not unique to a country. Through the GEF Food Systems Integrated Programme, co-led by FAO and IFAD, countries around the world are finding ways to make public budgets go further—generating climate benefits, economic growth, and social inclusion at once.

The challenge before us is simple to state, but difficult to resolve. Mobilizing climate finance is not simply a function of volume but also of the quality of the investments and the people it serves.

Without greater ambition, climate finance will not flow at the necessary scale and with the appropriate instruments. But climate ambition will stall unless finance reaches the sectors most capable of delivering transformation.

The Rome forum is a critical moment. It is a chance to align climate finance with climate opportunity. Through partnerships like the Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) Partnership and with a growing coalition of public and private actors, we can mobilize new resources, build better systems, and deliver real outcomes.

Farmers are already leading the way. Across the globe, they are adopting low-emission practices, restoring degraded lands, and protecting biodiversity. With the right support, they can do much more.

The window for action is narrowing. But the opportunity in agriculture is wide open. The question now is whether we will invest in it – at the scale and speed this moment demands.

Excerpt:

Kaveh Zahedi is the Director of the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

A "Coalition of the Willing" consisting of more than 30 countries met in Paris on Thursday to discuss future security guarantees for Ukraine. Acting as host, Emmanuel Macron announced that 26 states had pledged to provide troops. After the conference, in which some leaders took part via video link, there was a group phone call with US President Donald Trump. Europe's press takes stock.

The tone of exchanges between Israel and Europe is becoming harsher. In a break with previous language, EU Commission Vice-President Teresa Ribera described Israel's actions in Gaza as "genocide". Speaking in Paris, the Spanish politician said that the situation there had exposed "Europe's failure" to act and speak with one voice on this issue. The Belgian government also took a tougher stance this week when it unilaterally imposed sanctions on Israel.