Chhattisgarh's new elephant strategy: Keep the food inside forests by using seeds from dung to grow trees

RAIPUR: For years, forest officials tracked elephants to warn villagers. Now they’re trying something more ambitious—growing forests that elephants won’t want to leave.Using seedlings sprouting naturally from elephant dung, the Chhattisgarh forest department is creating food-rich habitat patches in an attempt to reduce the animals’ dependence on croplands.

The idea is to restore forests with tree species elephants naturally consume, encouraging them to remain within their habitat instead of straying into villages in search of food. The initiative was first used in Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve (USTR) after an observation by frontline elephant trackers working in the reserve’s rugged hills. While following herds, they noticed healthy saplings emerging from fresh elephant dung.

Since elephants consume a wide variety of fruits and vegetation, their droppings often contain naturally scarified seeds with high germination potential. Instead of letting these seedlings perish, forest staff now carefully transplant them into suitable forest locations to enrich elephant habitat. Officials say the plantations are not conventional afforestation drives. After years of field observations and data generated through the CG elephant tracking & alert app to identify what elephants actually eat and where habitat enrichment can deliver the greatest ecological benefit.

The programme has revealed that elephants feed extensively on native vegetation such as tendu, bamboo, sal and several other forest species—challenging the popular belief that they primarily seek mahua, said USTR deputy director Varun Jain.By concentrating preferred food species within the forest, officials hope to tackle one of central India’s most persistent conservation challenges—human-elephant conflict. The thinking is that healthier forests with abundant food will reduce the need for elephants to venture into agricultural fields, where crop damage often triggers conflict with villagers. Forest department plans to take off the initiative in other forest areas with elephant presence.