"Procedures are in place to legally create and declare the Elephant Route. It is wrong to say that there is no Elephant Route because the government has not yet announced it."
A group of friends from around the world have been spreading rumours that the Isha yoga Center has been misrepresented in the RTI stating that elephants do not occupy the trail.
Isha yoga Center is located at the foothills of Velliangiri in Coimbatore. The yoga centre is located on an area of about 150 acres near a dense forest.
People from all walks of life, including foreigners, stay and train here. Shivratri is traditionally celebrated here every year.
Environmentalists have been accusing Isha yoga Center of encroaching on elephant trails and jungles in the protected forest for years.
At the same time, it is being denied on behalf of the Isha yoga Center. It was then that he was asked under the Right to Information Act whether the Isha Foundation and the Isha yoga Center on Vellayangiri Hill were built to occupy the forest area.
1) The Isha Foundation and the Isha yoga Center are located in which forest area?
Answer: coimbatore forest
2) Does the ISHA centre occupy the forest and its details?
Answer: No. The ISHA centre does not occupy the forest
3) Is the ISHA Center built in the forest?
Answer: No. The ISHA Center building in the forest was not erected
4) Is the statue of Adi yogi in the forest?
Answer: The last questions have been answered
5) What are the details of the elephant routes that may be near the Eisa Center?
Answer: There is no declared elephant route in the coimbatore forest
6) Is there any elephant habitat in the central part of Isna?
no answer
7) Has the building been constructed by any ISHA centre in the area where the elephants live?
no answer
8) Does the Issa Center occupy the elephant habitat?
no answer
Question 5 is the most important of these: “To the question of what are the details of the elephant routes that may be near the Isha Center, the answer is that there is no declared elephant route in the coimbatore forest.
When contacted by Friends of the Earth, the group said, "Elephant migration routes in tamil Nadu have not yet been identified and reported, so to the question raised at RTI, the tamil Nadu Forest Department has announced that the migration route is not in the coimbatore forest and the Isha Center is not located on the declared elephant route."
After the introduction of the Forest Conservation Act, the need to identify elephant migratory routes and protect them was introduced after 1990.
Only then did the supreme court rule that the habitat of the elephants should be identified and declared a protected area. Based on this, a team of experts has been formed and work is underway to trace the route of the elephants.
Just because there is no declared elephant route does not mean that it is not an elephant migration route. Elephants have been living there for years, and the trail is there.
In this situation, the procedures for creating and declaring the Elephant Route legally are pending, and it is incorrect to say that there is no Elephant Route as the government has not yet announced it.
So it is wrong to assume that Isha did not occupy the elephant route and it is correct that the elephant route has not yet been identified, said lawyer Vetrichelvan.
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