Gajanana: Celebrate to Protect wild elephants

India now has less than 30000 elephants left in the wild. Development projects pose a big threat to these few remaining elephants, as they get killed by trains, their food corridors are walled in by private industry and farmers harm them in retaliation for damage to crops.

While we spend crores of rupees celebrating our love for Sri Ganesha, these living symbols of Bappa are slowly going extinct.

The Gajanana campaign aims to redirect our love for Sri Ganesha to protect living elephants as a form of worship. The money you donate will be sent to NGOs working to mitigate human-elephant conflict - and in the process - protecting both human and elephant lives.

The COVID crisis has shown us that we really need to change our form of worship to protect Nature and all her living children. eCoexist has been working to make Ganesh Chaturthi more eco friendly for the past 13 years. This year we would like to invite you to commit to protecting Indias last living elephants as your celebration of this incredible festival!

About this campaign:

Elephants are fondly called the “Gentle Giants”. And rightly so, with their grey skin, somber eyes and slow gait elephants are truly the gentlest creatures to walk on this planet. India is blessed with about 50% of the world population of the Asian Elephant, Elephas maximus. This population is mainly concentrated in parts of South, North, Central and Northeast India. The elephant has been provided the highest possible protection under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 of India as a Schedule I species and also included in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Despite all these conservation measures, the survival of the Asian Elephant continues to be threatened by degradation of its natural habitat, poaching for its body parts and the human-elephant conflict.

Elephants in our country are closely associated to its cultural and religious traditions. And hence they are highly revered and considered sacred. Lord Ganesha, the elephant headed God is half elephant and half human, and embodies all the qualities of the elephant – his strength and his gentleness. He perfectly symbolises the coexistence of humans and elephants. We, at eCoexist, believe in the co-existence of all species on earth. We believe it is essential to stay connected to nature, giving back to the bountiful nature for its generosity. At eCoexist, we promote tracing back the origin of Indian festivals to its roots, i.e to nature.

One of our major projects is the Eco Ganesh Campaign where we promote the use of eco-friendly idols during Ganesh Chaturthi to mitigate the environmental impact that the immersion of the toxic Plaster of Paris idols have on our water bodies. Being based in Pune where Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated with much grandeur, eCoexist for the past twelve years has been promoting the use of natural materials in such celebrations by producing beautiful eco-friendly idols made from natural clay, paper and cow dung; painted with turmeric, geroo and multani mitti. Today as people become more environmentally conscious, the demand for our idols in India as well as abroad has increased significantly. While the traditional worship of Ganesha continues and grows, the sad truth of a rapidly declining wild elephant population symbolising Ganesha stares at us.

In support of the Asian Elephant, eCoexist is launching the Gajanana Campaign to raise funds for its conservation in Northeast India. The Northeast is home to about 37% of India’s elephant population, concentrated primarily in Assam and few parts of Meghalaya. The tall grasslands and rich forests of Assam have long provided a safe haven for elephants to thrive. But today with growing human population, the expansion of agriculture and developmental activities, there is large scale fragmentation of elephant habitat and elephant corridors. More recently the COVID 19 crisis and the devastating floods in Assam have aggravated the situation. As a consequence, elephants increasingly venture into agricultural areas and human habitation in search of food and water. The man elephant conflict that follows these incursions puts the survival of elephants and the local communities at a high risk. To this effect, Assam based trust, Ecosystems-India is working together in villages of Assam to mitigate conflict through the community-based Assam Haathi Project.

The Asian elephant is endangered and needs urgent help. Any effort to protect elephant corridors, to prevent poaching and habitat destruction and assisting conflict affected people requires support from all quarters. Your contribution will go a long way for the survival of the Asian elephant. Please donate generously, your commitment will save these gentle giants from extinction. The money donated will be sent to the Assam Haathi Project and some of its partners, and will be used for community conservation efforts to save wild elephants in Assam.

Your funds will be specifically used to help reduce the conflict between human communities and elephants. 

See below some samples of the awareness work done by the Assam Haathi Project led by Nandita Hazarika:

Here's a quick update