Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav inaugurated the Centre of Excellence (CoE) on Human-Wildlife Conflict at the Wildlife Institute of India-Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (WII-SACON) campus in Coimbatore on 10 July 2026. He also launched the National Human-Wildlife Conflict Portal and released the inaugural report titled ‘Current Status of Human-Wildlife Conflict in India: An Overview’, which maps conflict trends and emerging hotspots across the country. The minister also presided over the 28th meeting of the reconstituted Wildlife Institute of India (WII) Society, calling for research frameworks aligned with the Viksit Bharat @ 2047 vision.
What Is the Centre of Excellence on Human-Wildlife Conflict?
The Centre of Excellence on Human-Wildlife Conflict is a dedicated national institution set up to coordinate and advance India’s response to the growing challenge of human-wildlife conflict. It operates as a joint facility of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), located on the SACON campus at Anaikatty in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.
The CoE was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 7th meeting of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) held at Gir National Park, Gujarat, on 3 March 2025. The NBWL is the apex statutory body on wildlife conservation in India, chaired by the Prime Minister as its ex-officio chairperson, with the Union Environment Minister serving as vice-chairperson.
Mandate and Functions
The CoE is designed to function as a national hub for research, innovation, policy support, and capacity building in the area of human-wildlife conflict management. It will conduct scientific research to understand the drivers of conflict across landscapes and develop evidence-based mitigation strategies using AI, machine learning, remote sensing, and geospatial mapping. The centre will equip state and Union Territory Rapid Response Teams with advanced tracking, surveillance, and early warning technologies, and deploy intrusion detection systems in conflict hotspots. It will also build the capacity of forest field staff and local communities while disseminating best practices among states to facilitate inter-state knowledge sharing.
The centre is also expected to collaborate with the Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG-N) to leverage space technology and geospatial intelligence for predicting and managing conflict situations.
WII and SACON: The Institutions Behind the CoE
The CoE is hosted jointly by two premier institutions under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
Wildlife Institute of India
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) was established in 1982 and granted autonomous status in 1986. Headquartered in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, it is the country’s nodal agency for wildlife research, training, and advisory services. WII has been instrumental in shaping India’s major conservation policies, including the All India Tiger Estimation, species recovery programmes for the Great Indian Bustard and the Gharial, and the scientific framework behind Project Cheetah, India’s cheetah reintroduction initiative. It also serves as a CITES Scientific Authority and provides inputs to the IUCN Red List.
Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History
The Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) was established in 1990 as a Centre of Excellence under the MoEFCC. It is named after Dr. Salim Ali, the renowned Indian ornithologist often called the ‘Birdman of India’. Located in Anaikatty, Coimbatore, at the foothills of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, SACON is a national centre for research in ornithology, biodiversity conservation, and natural history. The campus, spread over 55 acres, features eco-friendly architecture designed by Laurie Baker and lies adjacent to the Coimbatore South Reserved Forest. In recent years, SACON has been integrated with WII as the WII-SACON campus.
Why Coimbatore Was Chosen
SACON’s location in Coimbatore was strategically selected for its proximity to the Western Ghats, one of the world’s eight hottest biodiversity hotspots. The region is home to significant populations of elephants, tigers, leopards, and other conflict-prone species, making it an ideal base for studying and mitigating human-wildlife interactions in a real-world landscape.
Human-Wildlife Conflict in India: A Crisis in Numbers
Human-wildlife conflict has emerged as one of India’s most serious conservation and socio-economic challenges. As human populations grow and animal habitats shrink, encounters between people and wildlife have become more frequent and more dangerous.
The Scale of the Problem
The numbers tell a stark story. Between 2009 and 2024, India recorded 7,868 human fatalities from elephant encounters alone, averaging nearly 500 deaths per year. Human fatalities from elephant attacks rose steadily from 464 in 2020-21 to 629 in 2023-24, an increase of about 36 percent over four years.
Tiger attacks claimed 382 human lives between 2020 and 2024, with Maharashtra accounting for the highest toll at 218 deaths. Overall, 3,251 people lost their lives to tiger and elephant attacks combined during this five-year period.
Geographic Hotspots
The conflict is not evenly distributed across the country. Four states Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Assam accounted for nearly 70 percent of all human deaths from elephant attacks. In 2023-24, Odisha alone recorded 154 elephant-related fatalities, the highest among all states.
| State | Key Conflict Data |
|---|---|
| Odisha | 1,495 human deaths from elephant attacks (2009-2024); highest in India |
| Jharkhand | 1,205 deaths from elephant attacks in the same period |
| West Bengal | 1,306 deaths from elephant attacks |
| Assam | 1,161 deaths from elephant attacks; also 82 elephant deaths from train collisions |
| Maharashtra | 218 human deaths from tiger attacks (2020-2024); highest for tigers |
| Uttarakhand | Over 900 human lives lost to wildlife attacks since 2000 |
Wildlife Also Pays a Heavy Price
The conflict is not one-sided. Between 2009 and 2024, 1,653 elephants died from human-related causes. Electrocution was the leading cause, accounting for 69 percent of all unnatural elephant deaths with 1,105 fatalities. Train collisions killed 225 elephants, while poaching claimed 214 and poisoning 79.
India holds more than 60 percent of the global wild Asian elephant population, estimated at around 29,964 as per the 2017 Project Elephant census. As habitats fragment and land-use patterns change, coexistence has become harder for both species.
Policy Framework Before the CoE
India has not been inactive on this front. The National Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Strategy and Action Plan (HWC-NAP) was launched in 2021 for the period 2021-2026, developed under the Indo-German Technical Cooperation Project with support from GIZ. In 2023, the MoEFCC released 14 species-specific and issue-specific guidelines covering conflicts involving elephants, tigers, leopards, bears, wild pigs, snakes, crocodiles, and other species. Two comprehensive advisories were issued in February 2021 and June 2022, recommending coordinated inter-departmental action, identification of conflict hotspots, and establishment of Rapid Response Teams.
National Human-Wildlife Conflict Portal: A Digital Solution
During the inaugural event, the minister launched the National Human-Wildlife Conflict Portal, a digital platform designed to transform how conflict data is collected, managed, and used across the country.
What the Portal Does
Until now, India lacked a unified national database on human-wildlife conflict. Data was collected by individual state forest departments using different formats and methods, making it difficult to compare incidents across states or identify national-level trends. The portal addresses this gap by providing a common digital platform where all states and Union Territories can report and access conflict data.
The portal features GIS-based visualisation of conflict hotspots, enabling policymakers and forest managers to track where incidents are happening in real time. It supports data entry, storage, analysis, and sharing across agencies, creating the first comprehensive national picture of human-wildlife conflict.
How It Helps
For forest officials, the portal means faster access to reliable data for decision-making. For local communities, it could translate into quicker compensation processing and better-targeted mitigation measures. The portal also supports knowledge sharing among states, allowing them to learn from each other’s successes and failures in handling specific conflict situations.
Analogy · Why a National Portal Matters Expand analogy
Imagine a hospital where every ward keeps patient records on separate paper registers using different formats. No doctor can see the full picture. Now imagine a central digital system where every case is logged instantly, with location, symptoms, and treatment mapped on a screen. That is what the National Human-Wildlife Conflict Portal does for conflict data in India.
The Inaugural Report: Current Status of Human-Wildlife Conflict in India
The minister also released the first edition of a new publication series titled ‘Current Status of Human-Wildlife Conflict in India: An Overview’. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the current status, trends, and emerging challenges related to human-wildlife conflict in the country.
The report maps critical trends and identifies zones where conflict is intensifying, helping policymakers and forest departments prioritise resources. It is expected to be published periodically, serving as a reference document for tracking the effectiveness of mitigation measures over time.
28th Meeting of the WII Society
Bhupender Yadav, in his capacity as President of the WII Society, also presided over the 28th meeting of the reconstituted Wildlife Institute of India (WII) Society at the Central Academy for State Forest Service (CaSFOS) in Coimbatore.
This was the first meeting of the WII Society after its reconstitution for a three-year tenure, following the expiry of the previous nominated members’ terms in April 2026. The society includes newly nominated members, ex-officio members, Member of Parliament Atul Garg, Gujarat State Forest Minister Pravin Mali, representatives from states across all regions of India, senior ministry officials, scientists, academicians, and conservationists.
Key Address by the Minister
Addressing the society, Yadav emphasised the need to align WII’s research, training, and policy-support frameworks with the national vision of Viksit Bharat @ 2047. He stated that the institutional roadmap must prioritise human-wildlife conflict resolution, technology-driven management, and capacity building to meet India’s evolving wildlife management challenges.
Decisions Taken
The meeting reviewed WII’s landmark achievements since its inception, its current institutional priorities, and the Action Taken Report on decisions from the previous meeting. The Director of WII, Dr. G.S. Bhardwaj, presented an overview of these achievements and highlighted strategic outcomes from the recently convened Former Directors’ Meeting.
The meeting concluded with the establishment of a robust scientific agenda for the institute over the next three years, setting the direction for WII’s work in wildlife research and conservation.
Key Takeaways
- The Centre of Excellence on Human-Wildlife Conflict was inaugurated at the WII-SACON campus in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, announced earlier by PM Modi during the 7th NBWL meeting at Gir National Park on 3 March 2025.
- The National Human-Wildlife Conflict Portal was launched as a unified digital platform for data management, GIS-based hotspot mapping, and decision support across all states and Union Territories.
- The inaugural report ‘Current Status of Human-Wildlife Conflict in India: An Overview’ was released, documenting trends and emerging challenge zones.
- Between 2009 and 2024, India recorded 7,868 human fatalities from elephant encounters, with Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Assam accounting for nearly 70 percent of these deaths.
- The 28th meeting of the reconstituted WII Society was held, with the minister directing WII to align its research frameworks with the Viksit Bharat @ 2047 vision.
- The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) was established in 1982 and is headquartered in Dehradun, while SACON was established in 1990 in Coimbatore as a Centre of Excellence under the MoEFCC.
