India - Elephant Warnings via SMS

Description

Elephants moving through tea plantations in Tamil Nadu, India pose a significant risk to plantation workers - particularly at night. The majority of human deaths occur at night when individuals may be unaware as the animals move through the plantations in the dark. Over the past decade, three to four human deaths have occurred each year from elephants.

Through a cooperative effort of the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), an NGO working on wildlife conservation, the global not-for-profit group Elephant Family, the Tamil Nadu forest department and area tea companies including Tata Tea Ltd and Jay Shree Tea and Industries Ltd. an SMS-based early warning system has been created to alert workers when elephants are in the vicinity.

When elephants are sighted a broadcast SMS text message alert is sent in both English and Tamil to individuals within a 2 km radius. The message details on which tea plantation the elephants have been sighted. The SMS alerts are also supplemented by lighted beacons at high points within the estates that flash when elephants are in the area. The beacons can be remotely turned on and off by mobile phone and automatically trigger the broadcast text message alert when activated. First installed in 2011, the system now operates on 25 tea plantations and is gaining increased local support.