Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are ecologically, culturally, historically, and scientifically important across Asia, where they are revered in religious traditions, have long served important cultural roles, and continue to be a focus of scientific research and public interest. In the past five decades, Asian elephants have faced growing challenges due to rapid land-use changes and habitat fragmentation, leading to increasing incidences of human-elephant conflict and threatening their survival in both natural and anthropogenic habitats. As elephants in India are distributed across 33 elephant reserves, the management of elephant populations and their interactions with surrounding altered landscapes and people who share their land and resources has been a major conservation concern. Studies have shown that most of these negative interactions with humans adversely affect elephants’ ecological, behavioural, and physiological status. The conservation and management of Asian elephants, particularly in India, home to the largest elephant population and among the highest human densities in Asia, demand a systematic and interdisciplinary approach that integrates ecological, behavioural, and cultural perspectives. As the demands placed on elephants and their habitats continue to evolve, so too must the frameworks, methodologies, and strategies we use to address these shifts.

Elephants in Ecological Processes

The Asian elephant holds disproportionate ecological and cultural significance within the Indian subcontinent, and its persistence is integral to maintaining forest ecosystem function, sustaining natural cycles, and preserving a heritage that spans millennia. As a recognised keystone species and ecosystem engineer, the Asian elephant exerts influence upon vegetation structure, seed dispersal dynamics, and faunal community composition that extends far beyond the scale of its population abundance. Empirical studies conducted across tropical forests in Asia have demonstrated that the presence of Asian elephants is associated with more robust mammalian co-occurrence networks, higher overall mammal abundance, and particularly enhanced populations of ungulates and primates, indicating that elephants function as ecological facilitators whose decline could destabilise entire animal communities. Furthermore, elephants provide essential ecosystem services through selective foraging that modifies forest structure and composition, the creation of waterholes during dry seasons that sustain multiple taxa, and the dispersal of seeds over distances exceeding 60 kilometres, thereby promoting forest regeneration and above-ground carbon sequestration. Their dung constitutes a nutrient-rich medium that supports sapling establishment and sustains invertebrate communities, including dung beetles, which, in turn, contribute to complex trophic interactions within the forest floor ecosystem.

Elephants as agents of higher-order behavioural processes

Asian elephants demonstrate advanced cognitive abilities, including problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and complex social communication. They exhibit exceptional cooperation, empathy, and intricate interactions within their herds, showcasing skills like tool use and self-awareness. As their natural habitats become fragmented, elephants adapt to the challenges in human-altered habitats, illustrating their capacity for risk assessment and survival. Each elephant possesses a unique personality, reflecting individual intelligence and judgment. Hence, conserving their habitats is crucial to ensuring the continuation of these remarkable traits and abilities, underscoring the importance of supporting their conservation.

Current conservation strategies for Asian elephants primarily derive from studies conducted in protected areas with limited human impact. However, many elephants now live in human-altered habitats, facing various degrees of anthropogenic challenges. Research shows that elephants exhibit significant behavioural plasticity, adjusting their movements, habitat use, social structures, and decision-making in response to these new conditions. Additionally, individual differences in how elephants respond to human pressures complicate conservation efforts, revealing gaps in existing strategies. To promote human-elephant coexistence and the effectiveness of conservation initiatives, policies must reflect contemporary ecological realities and acknowledge elephants’ behavioural adaptations to human interactions. A context-dependent understanding of these dynamics is essential for formulating effective strategies that benefit both elephant populations and local communities.

Elephants reflect Asian cultural and historical significance

In the Indian context, the Asian elephant holds unparalleled cultural and historical importance, deeply embedded in religious, artistic, and political traditions. India shelters approximately sixty per cent of the global wild elephant population and approximately twenty per cent of the captive population in Asia. For many Indians, the elephant symbolises the national ethos to a degree that surpasses its formal designation as a protected species. Evidence of human-elephant associations dates back to the Indus Valley Civilisation, with seals from 2500–1500 B.C. suggesting domestication and management of elephants. Vedic literature contains numerous references to trained elephants. The elephant-headed deity Ganesha continues to confer cultural tolerance among Hindu communities, and depictions of elephants in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain art, as well as on Harappan seals, attest to their enduring symbolic role as emblems of wisdom, power, and sensuality within Indian civilisation.

Elephants in Anthropocene

Asian elephants in India face severe threats from human activities, resulting in a significant decline in the viability of their habitats. Since the early 20th century, habitat loss and fragmentation from agricultural expansion and infrastructure development have reduced their range by approximately 78%. This has intensified human-elephant conflicts, leading to around 600 human fatalities annually and a conservation estimate of 100 elephant deaths due to retaliatory killings every year. Between 2009 and 2025, anthropogenic causes accounted for around 1,650 elephant deaths, primarily from electrocution, railway collisions, and poaching. Despite calls to manage contiguous populations, many elephants inhabit small, fragmented areas within human-dominated landscapes, exacerbating their vulnerability. Movement corridors often become bottlenecks due to agricultural and urban encroachment, creating ecological traps that hinder gene flow and increase mortality risk in fragmented populations.

Human and elephant management policies: Historical and contemporary views

Elephant management in India dates back to the Mauryan period (321-185 BCE) with Kautilya’s Arthashastra, establishing protective policies. It was the basis for modern management policy in India, which led to the development of the “Elephant Preservation Act in 1879 to curb the killing of elephants in the country. After independence, the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 provided the highest level of protection for elephants in India. Later, several national and state-level plans were developed and implemented. These include the “National Elephant Conservation Action Plan” in 1999, which outlined a comprehensive strategy for protecting the elephants through 16 “Elephant Reserves”, protecting corridors and mitigating conflict, strengthening anti-poaching measures and promoting habitat restoration. Protection of elephants in the “Elephant Reserve” was expanded to a landscape-level approach in the MoEFCC’s 2010 “Gajha-Elephant Task Force Report.” In 2017, the Project Elephant Division of the MoEFCC released the “Guidelines for Management of Human Elephant Conflict,” which provided a comprehensive framework for managing human-elephant conflict through various preventive and reactive strategies. Later, the Ministry released the “Best Practices of Human- Elephant Conflict Management in India” in 2020, which provides details on available mitigation measures to contain and manage human-elephant conflict. The latter two documents were further refined and culminated in the “Guidelines for Human- Elephant Conflict Mitigation” in 2023, providing comprehensive guidelines for mitigating human-elephant conflict through a coexistence approach that addresses the drivers, prevention measures, and emergency and rapid response. Despite these efforts, conflicts persist, underscoring the need for a landscape-level approach that integrates site-specific strategies and a thorough understanding of conflict dynamics to achieve effective management of elephants and people in shared landscapes.

Conservation importance

The cumulative evidence indicates that conservation strategies for the Asian elephant must transcend species-level protection and adopt an ecosystem-based approach that safeguards landscape connectivity, restores degraded corridors, and integrates community engagement to mitigate conflict. Given that elephants serve as umbrella and indicator species whose loss would trigger cascading effects on biodiversity, carbon storage, and hydrological cycles, increased investment in corridor management, habitat improvement, and the regulation of linear infrastructure is essential to maintaining ecological resilience in contemporary India. Conservation planning that recognises the Asian elephant as both an ecological engineer and a cultural keystone is therefore imperative for securing the integrity of India’s forest ecosystems and upholding a natural heritage inseparable from the nation’s identity.

30 years of Asian elephant conservation: A special issue

This Special Issue in the Journal of Wildlife Science on 30 years of Asian elephant conservation presents a curated collection of research and perspectives on key developments in the field. This special collection aims to enhance elephant conservation through a multidimensional scientific approach while exploring the historical and cultural significance of elephants in India. The selected contributions provide insights and innovative solutions that connect theoretical research with practical applications.

The issue opens with an article detailing the concerted efforts of the Project Elephant Division within the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change (MoECC) of the Government of India over the past 30 years. The authors identify 150 elephant corridors and establish management guidelines for elephant conservation. While stressing the importance of robust legal frameworks, the article highlights that inadequacies in corridor protection, state-level implementation, and community involvement undermine the effectiveness of these policies. The paper advocates for the statutory recognition of elephant corridors, enhanced integration of climate change adaptation strategies, and the implementation of inclusive governance models as essential measures to ensure the long-term survival of elephants in India.

The next article highlights the contributions of Gaja-sastra, an ancient Indian discipline centred on the management of elephants. It illustrates how scholars from the 3rd century BC developed a comprehensive understanding of elephant behaviour, medicine, and management through meticulous observation and practical experience. By revisiting these indigenous knowledge systems, the piece emphasises their relevance in addressing contemporary challenges, such as human-elephant conflict and conservation, while offering insights into ethical coexistence and culturally rooted conservation practices in India.

The prevalence of human-elephant conflict presents a formidable challenge for government agencies, local communities, and scientific and conservation organisations. These stakeholders must develop context-specific measures and management strategies to minimise conflict and foster coexistence in the shared landscapes. Retaliatory killings of elephants, driven by the intensifying conflict between human populations and elephants, represent a critical concern that necessitates a thorough understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of elephant mortality.

A subsequent paper delves into the specific ecological factors contributing to elephant deaths in Chhattisgarh, identified as a hotspot for human-elephant conflict in India.

The dynamics of human-elephant relationships in shared landscapes have been increasingly affected by human development, driven by significant alterations to natural habitats. One of the studies in this issue investigates how elephants navigate human-dominated forest-plantation mosaics, highlighting their habitat use patterns across natural and anthropogenic habitats. This research underscores the challenges posed by physical barriers that confined elephant herds to a limited number of villages within a coffee-dominated landscape in South India.

Another important article examins the implications of Kodo millet consumption, which includes post-mortem investigations to ascertain the causes of elephant mortality at the wildlife-agriculture interface within the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve. Following this, the last study discusses the adverse effects of consuming Kodo millet infected with fungi, emphasising the presence of mycotoxins and their role in elephant fatalities in these regions. To mitigate these issues, the paper advocates a holistic approach that includes enhancing elephant movement corridors, improving agricultural safety, and implementing better crop management practices. It also emphasises integrating wildlife health considerations into landscape-level planning to avert such tragic incidents in Central India.

Additionally, a comprehensive monograph outlines the historical distribution of elephants and their gradual decline due to mass capture and habitat loss, which have led to significant population declines in central Indian states, including Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra. The recent reoccupation of some of these areas by elephants underscores the urgent need for proactive management strategies to resolve conflicts and promote elephant mobility, reinforcing the importance of dynamic conservation efforts in these regions.

This Special Issue emphasises the importance of a scientifically grounded approach to understand elephants, their needs, and their interactions with habitats and people. Such an understanding is vital for ecosystem health, human well-being, and the development of inclusive policies to conserve India’s National Heritage animal. We hope this collection serves as a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, encouraging further dialogue and collaboration.

We extend our sincere gratitude to the contributing authors for their rigorous work and to the peer reviewers for dedicating their time to upholding the highest academic standards for this issue. We invite you to explore the articles in this collection and engage in the ongoing conversation.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.