Conservation of a flagship species:Prioritizing Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) conservation units in southern India

Venkataraman, Arun B and Kumar, Venkatesa N and Varma, Surendra and Sukumar, R (2002) Conservation of a flagship species:Prioritizing Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) conservation units in southern India. In: Current Science, 82 (8). pp. 1022-1033.

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Abstract

The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is believed to number about 45,000 in the wild and is distributed across several populations over South and Southeast Asia. It is an important flagship species for the conservation of biodiversity as well as being a cultural symbol of the people of this region. We analyse a Geographical Information System database of administrative forest divisions constituting four Project Elephant Reserves designated for southern India, in an attempt to prioritize them for specific conservation action and funding allocation. We compute a conservation value for each of these divisions by using five variables characterizing habitat, population and biodiversity attributes. We also compute threat values for each, using two variables which represent the most significant threats. Based on a cluster analysis we demonstrate that divisions with high conservation values have large elephant distribution areas, preferred habitat areas and elephant

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Current Science
Publisher:	Indian Academy of Sciences
Additional Information:	Copyright belongs to this article is Indian Academy of Sciences.
Keywords:	Biodiversity; Wildlife Management;Conservation
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences
Date Deposited:	26 Oct 2007
Last Modified:	29 Jun 2011 12:09
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/12294

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