Wildlife Protection: Tamil Nadu Government Orders Prior Permission Mandatory To Install Electric Fences

In order to protect wildlife and help farmers to safeguard their crops, the Tamil Nadu government passed an order yesterday, on July 3, to make it mandatory to obtain prior permission from the authorities to set up electric fences, including solar fences.

These electric fences are often erected by villagers, or the local administration, to address crop depredation by wild animals which results in conflict with the farmers.

It is a first of its kind initiative in which the government of Tamil Nadu has notified the Tamil Nadu Power Fences (Registration and Regulation) Rules 2023.

“This would standardise and regulate erection of power fences (including Solar) within a 5 kms radius of forest areas. This would go a long way in preventing electrocution of wildlife especially elephants. This fulfils our commitment to this critical and much-needed action,” Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary (Environment, Climate change and Forest) tweeted while thanking Chief Minister M K Stalin and praising him for leading them on the pathbreaking initiative.

According to the new rules in the statement, it will be mandatory to seek prior permission from the government of Tamil Nadu to erect electric fences around the farms including the solar fences and to also register the already elected fences. This rule will therefore be applicable only within the five km radius of a notified reserve forest area.

Moreover, the companies that regulate in the business of erecting electric fences are now mandated to comply with the norms (BIS standard viz, BIS-302-2-76, India).

“In order to ensure compliance of conditions, a joint team of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and forest department shall take up field level inspections once in a fortnight and record details in a log book maintained,” the statement added.

As per the official statement, the new rule would also standardise and regulate already erected power fences around farmlands. It is noted that the state government of Tamil Nadu is deeply committed to protecting wildlife in the state as there have been incidents of wild animals, especially elephants getting electrocuted due to high voltage electric fences.

It also stated that the District Forest Officer (DFO) along with Tamil Nadu Electricity Board officials would consider an application within 45 days for approval, reduction or rejection.

Further it also added that the owner of the property who has existing power fences as on the date of publication of the rules, shall apply within 60 days from the date of publication of the rules to the DFO for obtaining the registration certificates.

Meanwhile the statement highlighted that on receiving the receipt of the permission, the owner of the property may erect the fence within 90 days from the date of permission and then apply for registration of the electric fences along with an undertaking form.

It also mentioned the quality of the erected electric fences. The statement said that it should be reviewed once every three years for providing fitness certificates after a joint inspection by the team of forest and electricity department officials of the state.

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Human Wildlife Conflict

One of the main threats to the survival of some of the world's most iconic species is the conflict between humans and animals, states a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), released on July 8, 2021.

This joint report between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and WWF titled 'A future for all - the need for human-wildlife coexistence', reveals that globally, conflict-related killing affects more than 75 per cent of the world’s wild cat species. Besides, many other terrestrial and marine carnivore species such as polar bears and Mediterranean monk seals, and large herbivores such as elephants are affected.

Meanwhile, in India, the data from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change reveals that over 500 elephants were killed between 2014-2015 and 2018-2019, largely due to human-elephant conflict.

As a result of conflict with elephants, 2,361 people were killed during that same period of 2014-15 and 2018-19.

The 2021 joint report states that India will be the most-affected country by human-wildlife conflict. This was because it had the world’s second-largest human population as well as large populations of tigers, Asian elephants, one-horned rhinos, Asiatic lions and other species.

For the conservation of wildlife the WWF India had also developed a low-cost, single strand, non-lethal electric fence to ease the guarding of crops from elephants.

According to the WWF-UNEP report, “the project had brought dividends. For instance, in the Gohpur area of Biswanath district, some 212 hectares of crops were being lost annually to elephants before these interventions in 2015. Afterwards, crop losses dropped to zero for four years running. Human and elephant deaths also reduced significantly,” it added.