Press Release: March 30, 1999

More Information About IPAN Animal Refuge Veterinary Services Education Animal Conditions Project Reports "Loki" the Indian Elephant and related issues How you can help

Loki’s Story Continues

One of the principal opponents of India Project for Animals and Nature (IPAN) is employed by one of the largest tea plantations in the Nilgiris. Loki was roaming a tea plantation when he was caught. Tea plantations not only encroach wildlife habitat and pollute with herbicides and pesticides. They also require the cutting of a lot of trees for fuel to cure the tea leaves.

This same man, who has assumed a position on the board of the defunct Nilgiris Animal Welfare Society, that orchestrated a disinformation campaign against IPAN in 1997 and made every effort to criminalize IPAN Director Deanna Krantz so she would be deported, is a vocal proponent of a hydro-electric project in Loki’s domain.

The Nilgiris Wildlife Association, totally silent over the environmental impact of this hydro-electric project, has joined the latest disinformation campaign against IPAN over Loki the elephant, through the local press and by word of mouth, along with two other NGO’s, the Native Medical Care Trust and the CPR Environmental Education Centre.

Such opposition was incomprehensible to all involved with IPAN who had simply come to the Nilgiris to provide much-needed veterinary care to one of the largest concentrations of domestic animals in India. IPAN’s veterinary efforts indirectly help protect wildlife in the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary from diseases spread from infected village and tribal community animals. Once IPAN had gained the trust of these indigenous peoples, they became IPAN informants, in spite of disinformation and malicious rumors spread locally. This is because IPAN is committed to helping the people whose well-being is dependent in large measure upon a healthy animal population. First-hand knowledge and video documentation of a host of corrupt and illegal activities, many orchestrated by local NGO’s, that are leading to the demise of indigenous peoples and the wildlife in the Nilgiris, have been secured.

“IPAN is for the people as well as for the animals,” says Deanna Krantz.

“The more money that comes in to supposedly help the tribals and to protect the wildlife, the more harm is done because most of it is going into the wrong hands.”

Expansion of plantations, illegal brick factories, trucking-out of cow manure, land encroachment by real estate speculators, guest lodge developers, and absentee landlord-farmers laundering “black money” and other nefarious and pecuniary activities, are part of the ecological cancer of the bio-region, a bio-region recognized in 1986 by the United Nations and identified as a World Biosphere Reserve.

As for the hydroelectric power project, which is a 10-minute drive from IPAN’s Hill View Farm Animal Refuge, the Environmental Investigation Agency had this to say:

Destruction of a Biosphere Reserve

Construction of the massive Pykara Ultimate Stage Hydro-Electric Project

(PUSHEP) is already well advanced. Located in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve, home to a third of India’s wild elephant population, the project will affect no fewer than three sanctuaries including the Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

The plans for this hydro-electric project were first announced in the 1980’s by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. PUSHEP is projected to have horrific ecological consequences, including insularization of wildlife populations, desertification of the thorn forest, and increased human-animal conflicts. According to a study published by the Bombay Natural History Society in February 1996, construction has already destroyed a vital elephant corridor, separating the Nilgiris population in two and ultimately leading to their genetic decline. A similar impact on tiger populations can be expected.

There have been long doubts over the economic viability of the project. In 1986, it was rejected by the Central Electric Authority as too expensive, but was later “mysteriously” cleared by the planing commission following approval by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in 1985. *

So it would seem that the fate of Loki is tied to the beginning of the end. It may also be tied to the beginning of a new light in India and on India, which will be marked in time when Loki is given sanctuary and his suffering vindicated by compassionate action.

* p. 20 in The Political Wilderness. India’s Tiger Crisis, London, England. The Environmental Investigation Agency, 1998.