How saving elephants helps forests breathe easier, Pg8

Key Highlights:

• A recent study highlights that protecting the endangered Asiatic elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) indirectly aids in safeguarding India's forests as significant carbon stores.
• The research, published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, found that the carbon stored within elephant reserves increased by 38% between 1992 and 2025, despite only a marginal 6.7% rise in the elephant population.
• This increase in carbon storage is primarily attributed to enhanced protection and reduced degradation of existing forest carbon stocks, rather than direct biomass creation by elephants.
• The study emphasizes that merely declaring more areas as elephant reserves is insufficient; improving habitat quality, restoring wildlife corridors, and strengthening forest management are crucial for long-term carbon stabilization.
• Concerns were raised about a decline in elephant numbers under the new Synchronised All-India Elephant Estimate (SAIEE) 2021-25 methodology, which reported 22,446 elephants, fewer than the 2017 estimate.

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Detailed Insights:

• The Asiatic elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) is a subspecies of the Asian elephant, native to the Indian subcontinent, and is classified as endangered.
• Elephants are considered "ecosystem engineers" due to their vital roles in seed dispersal, soil enrichment through dung, and creating diverse vegetation, which helps maintain healthy, carbon-storing forests.
• The network of elephant reserves in India expanded significantly from 18,297 sq. km (3 reserves) to 80,777 sq. km (33 reserves) between 1992 and 2025.
• The study indicated a weak correlation between the number of elephant reserves and population growth, suggesting that administrative declarations alone do not guarantee the species' future if habitats remain fragmented.
• India's carbon sink target, as part of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), aims to create an additional 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent carbon sink by 2030, a target that remained unchanged in the 2022 updated NDC.
• More recently, India's new NDC (2031-2035), approved in March 2026, targets creating a 3.5 to 4 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent carbon sink through forest and tree cover by 2035 from 2005 levels.
• Policy integration of megafauna protection with forest-carbon goals and incorporating wildlife-inclusive accounting within REDD+ frameworks could strengthen India's climate commitments.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Carbon Stabilisation: The process of trapping atmospheric carbon and locking it into stable, solid forms like soil or organic matter to mitigate climate change.
• Ecosystem Engineers: Organisms that significantly modify, create, or maintain habitats, thereby influencing the availability of resources for other species.
• REDD+: A UNFCCC mechanism that provides financial incentives to developing countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and for conservation, sustainable forest management, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
• Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): Climate action plans submitted by countries under the Paris Agreement, outlining their efforts to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.