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(The Gist of PIB) World Elephant Day

[August-2020]

On the eve of World Elephant Day, Union Environment Minister released a Compendium on Best practices of Human-Elephant Conflict Management in India.

World Elephant Day is annually celebrated on August 12.
The day aims to create awareness on elephant conservation, and to share knowledge and positive solutions for the better protection and management of wild and captive elephants.
World Elephant Day was co-founded on August 12, 2012, by Canadian Patricia Sims and the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation of Thailand, an initiative of HM Queen Sirikit of Thailand.

During the event, the Union Environment Ministry also launched beta version of a portal on Human-Elephants Conflict.
The National Portal on human elephant conflict called “Surakhsya” is for collection of real time information and also for managing the conflicts on a real time basis.
At present the beta version of the portal is being launched for data testing before the pan India roll out for adoption by the states, which is likely to be done before year end.

Asian elephants are listed as “Endangered” on the IUCN Red List of threatened species.
Indian Elephant has also been listed in the Appendix I of the Convention of the Migratory species in the recently concluded Conference of Parties of CMS 13 at Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat in 2020.
Elephant is the Natural Heritage Animal of India.