Without ecological sense, growth kills

Several elephants were killed after a herd is struck by the Sairang-New Delhi Rajdhani Express in Nagaon district, Assam, on a Saturday morning. In a single sentence, the news brief encapsulates the deepening crisis of man-animal conflict in India and the cost of treating it as an afterthought in development planning.

Such incidents are no longer aberrations. They are the predictable outcomes of a structural failure in how infrastructure expansion, conservation priorities and governance intersect. When a high-speed train barrels through a landscape long used by elephants, the more pertinent question is not why animals were on the tracks. It is why the tracks were planned, operated and upgraded without adequate safeguards in landscapes that wildlife has inhabited for centuries.

India’s record on man animal conflict reflects a troubling paradox. On paper, the country has one of the strongest conservation frameworks in the world, anchored in the Wildlife Protection Act, the National Wildlife Action Plan and oversight bodies such as the National Board for Wildlife. In practice, these safeguards are routinely diluted as ministries driving growth, notably Railways, Road Transport and Highways and Power, push linear infrastructure through ecologically sensitive regions at unprecedented speed.

Nowhere is this man-animal collision more visible than in Assam. Railways, highways and transmission lines slice through fragmented forests and elephant corridors, leaving animals with few safe passages. Elephants, which require vast, contiguous habitats and follow migratory routes older than modern administrative boundaries, are forced into closer contact with farms, settlements and transport networks. The consequences are tragically consistent, crop damage, human fatalities, retaliatory killings and, increasingly, mass deaths caused by trains.

Railway tracks running through elephant corridors in Assam, Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand have long been identified as high-risk zones by expert committees and forest departments. Recommendations have been repeated for years, speed restrictions, early warning systems, animal underpasses and selective track realignments. Yet implementation has been uneven. Speed curbs are frequently violated, monitoring systems remain patchy and accountability is diffused between the Railways and state forest departments.

The urgency is only set to grow. Indian Railways is in the midst of a major capacity and speed expansion, spanning dedicated freight corridors, semi high-speed passenger trains and upgrades to existing routes. While these projects are framed as efficiency gains, they traverse some of the most wildlife rich and conflict prone landscapes in the country. In the absence of mandatory, enforceable safeguards, faster and heavier trains dramatically increase the risk of fatal encounters.

In landscapes already under strain, higher speeds without robust mitigation turn known conflict zones into death traps. This is not a wildlife management problem alone but a governance failure with foreseeable outcomes.

Elephants, however, are only one part of a wider national pattern. In Uttar Pradesh’s Terai region, tigers increasingly stray into sugarcane fields and villages as forests are hemmed in by agriculture, roads and canals. Human fatalities and retaliatory pressures have risen alongside habitat fragmentation. In Maharashtra, leopards routinely enter settlements around Junnar, Nashik and parts of Vidarbha, navigating sugarcane belts and peri urban sprawl that offer cover but little prey. Similar dynamics are visible across central India, where roads, mines and railway lines isolate forest patches and push large carnivores into closer proximity with people.

These conflicts are often framed as wildlife straying beyond its limits. In reality, it is human activity that has redrawn ecological boundaries without accounting for animal movement. Environmental impact assessments, overseen by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, are too often reduced to procedural clearances rather than rigorous planning tools. Wildlife mitigation measures are appended late in project cycles, weakened under deadline pressures and rarely monitored with seriousness.

The costs of this approach extend well beyond wildlife losses. Man-animal conflict imposes recurring fiscal burdens through compensation payments, crop damage and infrastructure disruption. More damaging are the social costs, loss of life, trauma, livelihood insecurity and the steady erosion of trust between local communities and the state. When warnings go unheeded and tragedies repeat along the same corridors, public confidence in governance collapses.

There is also an ethical dimension that policy debates frequently sidestep. India’s wildlife is not merely a resource to be managed but a shared natural heritage with intrinsic value. The death of eight elephants in a single incident represents not just individual loss but a blow to already stressed populations grappling with habitat loss and climate volatility.

Addressing man animal conflict requires a decisive shift from reactive responses to preventive planning. Compensation after deaths, while necessary, does little to reduce risk. What is needed is a landscape level approach that aligns infrastructure design with ecological realities.

First, wildlife corridors must be formally recognised and protected with the same seriousness as national parks and sanctuaries. While the Wildlife Protection Act allows for conservation and community reserves, these provisions are underused for corridor protection. Advisory guidelines are no longer sufficient. Enforceable standards, backed by the MoEFCC and implemented by states, are essential.

Second, transport infrastructure in high conflict zones must adopt technology driven safeguards as a core design requirement, especially as railway speeds increase. Automated animal detection systems, real time alerts to loco pilots, fencing that funnels animals towards safe underpasses and strictly enforced speed limits are neither experimental nor prohibitively expensive. Pilot projects have demonstrated effectiveness. What is missing is scale and accountability.

Third, institutional coordination must improve. Man-animal conflict falls between multiple authorities, forest departments, Railways, highways agencies and district administrations. Fragmented responsibility ensures delayed action and post tragedy finger pointing. A standing inter-agency mechanism with clear lines of accountability could ensure that mitigation measures are implemented, audited and corrected.

Fourth, communities living on the frontlines of conflict must be treated as partners rather than passive recipients of compensation. Early warning systems, community- based monitoring and timely, fair payments can reduce hostility towards both wildlife and the state. Where local knowledge is incorporated into planning, outcomes tend to be more durable.

Finally, India’s development narrative itself needs recalibration. Speed and scale cannot remain the sole measures of progress. Infrastructure that disregards ecological context is neither efficient nor sustainable. Repeated deaths of people and wildlife along known corridors reflect not inevitability but institutional unwillingness to learn.

The tragedy in Nagaon is a stark reminder that coexistence is not an abstract ideal. It is a practical necessity in a crowded country where human and animal spaces inevitably overlap. Whether such incidents continue to be filed away as routine news or serve as catalysts for change will depend on the choices made by policymakers and planners.

The elephants were only following ancient paths. Responsibility for what happened rests squarely with the institutions tasked with shaping a shared landscape and deciding whether growth will proceed with foresight or at a cost that keeps mounting.

The author works in the fields of environment, wildlife conservation and public policy, with a focus on the impacts of infrastructure development on ecological systems.