Is the Isha Yoga Center in an elephant corridor?
The claim
Activists and some reports say the Coimbatore center sits in an elephant corridor, and that buildings and festival crowds block elephant movement along the Thanikandi-Marudhamalai path.
What "corridor" means here
A corridor, in the Wildlife Trust of India's usage, is a narrow transit strip between two places elephants live, often 100 metres to a kilometre wide. It is not the same word as habitat. The reserve forest next door can be elephant habitat without the campus being a notified corridor. That distinction is the whole argument.
What the lists say
Isha's August 2023 note, and a News18 report of a September 2021 RTI reply, say the Tamil Nadu forest department has notified no elephant corridor in the Coimbatore forest division. The five corridors the department's expert committee report names inside Tamil Nadu are all on the Segur plateau in the Nilgiris: Singara-Masinagudi, Chemmanatham-Mavinhalla, Bokkapuram-Mavinhalla, Glencorin and Vazhthottam. Isha cites an RTI, WL5/35913/2013, for the same point.
The 2010 Gajah report of the environment ministry listed priority corridors in South India. Isha says the center is in none of them. The Wildlife Trust of India's Right of Passage listed 88 corridors in 2005 and 101 in 2017. Isha says the center is on none of those either, and that the Coimbatore division maps in that report do not mark the campus. WWF's proposed Tamil Nadu corridors are cited the same way. These WTI and WWF corridors are proposed, not all notified.
The other report
Newslaundry in May 2021 wrote that the campus is adjacent to the Boluvampatti reserve forest, an elephant habitat, and along a migration path. It said a 2012 forest-officer note treated constructions and Mahashivratri crowds as obstructing a corridor, and that a June 2020 status report to the National Green Tribunal, from principal chief conservator P. Durairasu, called the campus adjacent to Ikkarai Boluvampatti Block 2, a famous elephant habitat, but not a designated elephant corridor. Adjacent habitat is a real description. It is not a finding that the campus is inside a notified corridor.
Still missing: the 2021 RTI reply as a PDF, WL5/35913/2013, and the 2020 NGT status report. The WTI maps are on Isha's page as images.
Sources
- Isha, 13 Aug 2023
- News18, 11 Dec 2021, on the RTI reply
- Tamil Nadu forest department expert committee report
- Newslaundry, 17 May 2021