Bhubaneswar: In a pioneering step towards addressing the rising cases of human-elephant conflict in Odisha, ‘Hati Sabha’, a novel community interaction programme on elephant conservation, was launched Thursday across 10 most affected districts in the state. The initiative is jointly conducted by Bikash Saathi, Dharitri, Orissa POST and ASD Group to foster grassroots-level solutions by bridging communication between forest officials, local communities, and youth. The programme was ceremoniously flagged off by Dharitri and Orissa POST Editor Tathagata Satpathy, the publications’ Chief Executive Adyasha Satpathy, and Founder and Co-founder of Bikash Saathi Biswajeet Panda and Manaranjan Das, respectively.
The inaugural session was marked by active coordination between Tushar Behera and Sai Priya Nayak. Held in Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Cuttack, Khurda, Ganjam and Kandhamal districts, the Sabha is designed to bring together community members and college students to discuss real-time challenges, threats, facts, and insights from Forest department.
Gathering community perceptions and traditional knowledge on human-elephant coexistence, the initiative aims to strengthen local understanding, promote peaceful cohabitation and integrate indigenous wisdom into conservation practices.
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Addressing the gathering, Tathagata Satpathy emphasised the major challenges contributing to human-elephant conflicts, including habitat loss, electrocution, rail hits, and plastic pollution, traces of which have even been found in elephant dung. Adyasha Satpathy shared community perceptions collected from across the districts, underlining the importance of empathy and coexistence. Biswajeet Panda educated attendees on elephant behaviour, dos and don’ts during elephant depredation, and the critical role pachyderms play as keystone species in forest regeneration.
