The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) rolled out the ‘Gaj Yatra’ from Tura, the principal town of Garo Hills of Meghalaya.
It was organized by the Wildlife Trust of India in collaboration with the State Forest Department.
‘Gaj Yatra’, a “journey celebrating India’s national heritage animal”, aims at securing 100 elephant corridors across India.
Four of these are in Meghalaya, including the Siju-Rewak corridor that some 1,000 elephants use to travel between the Balpakram and Nokrek National Parks in the State.
It is an 18-month-long national campaign aimed to protect elephants in 12 elephant range states.
It was launched in August 2017 by Environment and Forest Minister Harsh Vardhan on the occasion of World Elephant Day 2017 of August 12.
The event involves taking an elephant mascot across districts frequented by jumbo herds for generating awareness among the people.
The aim of this project is to rehabilitate people affected by man-elephant conflict in corridor areas while ensuring uninterrupted movement of elephants between key habitats.