Creating an animal habitat in any landscape brings forth several challenges and opens up valuable opportunities for learning and innovation. More so when the designated site is a degraded, arid land with the intent to house animals from a tropical environment. 

The planning and implementation processes developed for Hathi Gaon addresses diverse issues that emerged due to the unusual project setting. First was the creation of a sustainable habitat for nearly 150 elephants that did not belong to the region. 

Second was to address the arid landscape and regenerate it into a sustainable territory, essential for a stable animal habitat. Third was the inclusion of humans as caretakers of the elephants (mahout) and their families. Added to this was the dimension of tourism, allowing visitors to experience living with the elephants. An extremely long-drawn and iterative process had to address multiple stakeholder concerns while balancing the physical, emotional and ecological needs of the elephants. 

A detailed understanding of the site and the region helped evolve an integrated land-water-biodiversity strategy to both revive the health of the land and create an appropriate environment for both humans and elephants. Complex needs of the animals’ relationship with water meant the creation of multiple natural water bodies water drinking, bathing, etc.

Periodic availability of funds and resources has created its own set of challenges for the actualisation of the project over 15 years.

The process has been in collaboration with M/s. Rahul Mehrotra and associates as the main steward of the project along with agencies of the Government of Rajasthan.