Captive elephants play an important role by providing transportation during forest monitoring patrol activities, as a tool for gaining local community interest during awareness events, and driving away crop raiding wild elephants should conflict incidents arise.
Mahouts, as part of the CRU team, not only take care of the elephants but are involved in all CRU activities and have gained training in wildlife observation techniques and basic use of navigation devices and mapping. Most of the CRU team members have little educational background, yet through a series of capacity building activities have been trained in assessing and selecting priority areas for CRU activities and field patrols, operating hand held GPS units, filling in standardized data-sheets for forest patrolling and conducting HEC assessments.
This empowerment has provided a sense of dignity to the mahouts, a yet unexplored potential source of human resources working for field based conservation.
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Conservation Response Units
