author(s)
Unni Ravisankar, C Sekhar, K Baranidharan and A Vidhyavathi

abstract
The study was carried out in Coimbatore Forest Circle because of frequent Man-Animal Conflicts occurred in recent years by following a mixed sampling approach. The most commonly assumed distinguishing characteristic of a corridor is its function as a linear landscape element to facilitate species movement. Tamil Nadu is the major stakeholder state in the project elephant. It has 5 elephant sanctuaries covering 7940 sq.km with 6776 elephants were enumerated in 2005, 19 elephant corridors and 4 interstate corridors linking to elephant sanctuaries in Karnataka. In India 88 elephant corridors were identified as being currently in use by the elephants across the elephant reserve areas. Of these, 12 are in North Western India, 20 in Central India, 14 in North West Bengal, 22 in North-Eastern India and 20 in South India. Among these corridors, the elephants are using around 77 per cent of the corridors. Based on Standard Analysis (SA) about one third are of ecologically high priority and 67 per cent are of medium importance. To document the fact sheets of the corridors, a sample plot was chosen covering an area of 0.25 acre and the tree species available in the plot were recorded to highlight the food species of elephants and the obstacles established in the corridor were also identified. School buildings, Ashrams, Research Institutions of State and Central Government were the obstacles besides establishment of private plantations adjacent to the corridor. As per the norms, two chain length of the land space from reserve forest zone should be freely available to avoid the animal entry into the human habitations. But the two chain length space has been illegally occupied and made into Patta lands and established private plantations of commercial importance and hence these lands have to be secured by the Forest Department under the head of conservation plan to make the corridors free from encroachment.