An invasive toxic shrub is transformed into models of elephants in South India to raise millions for forest restoration and animal-based charities
By Lavina Melwani, New York
At a time when so many things seem to be going wrong in our world, we have a real-life, good-news story for you. It comes from the Meatpacking District in New York City, which a century ago was an area of local slaughterhouses. Now it is a beloved hub of culture, with one hundred elephants visiting from the Nilgiri Hills in South India with a message of peace and coexistence. On September 6, 2024, the community turned out to welcome them with a blessing ceremony, showering them with rose petals.
“We are humbled and proud to welcome these elephants from India to take up residency here for the next six weeks. They’ll bring lots of smiles and many double takes,” said Jeffrey LeFrancois, Executive Director of the Meatpacking District. “As you quickly turn your head, there’s this immediate sense that they suddenly just belong here, too, and that feels really good.”
Indeed, it was a joy to see whole families interacting with these massive creatures, taking photographs together, and children touching them as if man and elephant had always lived together here.
These hundred elephants are not real live pachyderms but sculptural masterpieces designed to convey positivity and hope. They are made of Lantana camara, the second most invasive species in the world, which is toxic to humans and elephants. This fast-growing shrub has taken over 40% of forests in India, thus diminishing food sources for animals and forcing them to seek sustenance in urban areas.
In order to free up land for agriculture and to safeguard all living creatures, these poisonous shrubs need to be cleared. But rather than fill up valuable landfill space with them, human ingenuity has turned the toxic material into a potent silent mantra and symbol of the can-do spirit, supporting coexistence and sustainability.
The Great Elephant Migration is created by Elephant Family USA, a charity that works to protect Asian wildlife. One of its trustees is Ruth Ganesh, an environmentalist specializing in large-scale outdoor art exhibitions that benefit conservation work, and who has raised over $20 million for wildlife conservation.
At the blessing ceremony, surrounded by VIPs and curious people, Ganesh said, “I can’t even contain the emotions to finally have the herd of elephants landing on the iconic streets of the Meatpacking District. The firing gun has officially started on a dream that has incubated for 10 years. These elephants are a direct imprint on what is happening in India right now, and they speak for all the animals that are wandering through towns, cities, agricultural plantations and across highways around the world. It’s actually a very positive story, despite the fact that wildlife are up against it right now. It celebrates the story of India, where despite the doubling of a human population, there’s also been a doubling of the number of elephants, tigers and rhinos. At this particular moment in time for the world, that is absolutely remarkable. India is a miracle of a country for so many reasons, but we passionately believe that the spiritual tapestry underpinning the entire culture is what’s led to such an empathy where animals are increasing, despite humans also increasing. Elephants have been around for about six million years, long before we were. They love, they grieve, they have thoughtful conversations, and they negotiate an incredibly human-dominated world.”
She went on to discuss the amazing journey this special herd has embarked on: “We are going to migrate this 100-strong herd of elephants from the East Coast to the West. It is going to take one year and one month. It is 3,500 miles in length. Every single elephant is for sale. We plan to sell the herd 10 times over and raise $10 million for all sorts of conservation NGOs that are helping humans overlap with different animals.”
The Live Herd and Forest Caretakers
Dr. Tarsh Thekaekara is another trustee of Elephant Family USA. He is a researcher-conservationist who lives in the Nilgiri Hills with the real elephants. Most of his work revolves around human-elephant coexistence and a community-based approach to managing invasive species, particularly Lantana camara. He holds a PhD in Geography from The Open University and an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from The University of Oxford. He is a trustee of The Shola Trust, a founding member of The Real Elephant Collective, and adjunct faculty at the Human-Wildlife Coexistence Cell at the Trans-Disciplinary University.
Part of his PhD involved understanding individual elephant behavior and personalities, which forms the basis of creating the Lantana elephant herd. That herd of 100 elephants has been twinned in the sculptures: each one is a replica of a real elephant who lives with the indigenous people in the Nilgiris, almost like family.
Dr. Thekaekara puts a personal face to the whole endeavor, since he lives in close proximity to the wild elephants. He told the gathered crowd, “So, the story of the elephants starts a long time ago, and it’s a long and complex one. The primary objective is for the elephants to inspire people. People around the world already love elephants, but the elephant that lives in the popular culture and in peoples’ mind doesn’t often connect back to the real wild elephant that lives in the forest and plantations around the world. This project is trying to leverage the cultural elephant to feedback into conserving the real elephant on the ground. Each of the sculptures is based on a real wild elephant that lives in the neighboring hills in tea and coffee plantations, alongside people.”
He pointed out the end result of this project: “Finally, perhaps the innermost core of this project is the story of the people who live alongside animals. Stories from India rarely come across here, beyond the Ambani weddings and other things, but there is a deep culture and an animistic tradition among the people of India, particularly the indigenous communities, who live in the forests, respecting and living with animals. There are 200 indigenous artisans who are the traditional stewards of forests going back centuries, but got displaced from them. Now they can return to stewardship. By making these elephants, they gain a livelihood and they heal the forests.”
One of the main sponsors of the Great Elephant Migration is the iconic Indian fashion house Sabyasachi, which hosted an elephant outside the flagship store on Christopher Street. Founder Sabyasachi Mukherjee attended the blessing and explained why he is a part of it:“Preservation is at the core of what we both do. Elephant Family with their conservation of the world’s endangered animals, and Sabyasachi in our safeguarding of heritage craft and traditional skills, are ensuring the continuity of humanity’s shared treasures for future generations.”
According to Elephant Family US, “In the last 30 years the population of India has doubled to 1.4 billion. Remarkably, the population of elephants, rhinos, lions and tigers has also doubled over this period. They coexist in extraordinary ways, tolerating each other and constantly negotiating space.
“India’s elephants are flagships for coexistence, with 80 percent of their range outside of Protected Areas. In Gudalur, in the Nilgiri Hills, 150 elephants share space with a quarter of a million people. Humans and elephants share the same land, food and water, but still find ways to live alongside each other relatively peacefully.
“A range of beliefs and practices emphasize respect and reverence for nature. India’s ancient cultures go hand in hand with a range of modern technologies, from smart fences to AI-based monitoring systems. Their remarkable relationship with wildlife is ultimately down to a collective empathy for other living beings at a national scale.”
Negatives into Positives
So how did The Great Elephant Migration change a negative into a positive, creating value out of something harmful and otherwise useless?
The migration art project supports a large-scale lantana removal effort in India, converting it into biochar which improves soil fertility and water retention. Biochar is a solid, black carbon product created by heating organic materials like wood chips, plant residues, or manure in a limited amount of oxygen. It is a direct capture solution for sequestering carbon into the ground to mitigate climate change. The project will restore vast areas of forests over the next five years. It is not only about a cleaner world but also about providing livelihoods for some of the most marginalized people in the world.
The creation of the elephants supports long-term sustainable employment for indigenous communities in Tamil Nadu. Currently, 200 members of the Soliga, Bettakurumba, Paniya and Kattunayakan tribes form The Coexistence Collective, part of The Real Elephant Collective, a community social enterprise. In addition, sculpture sales support global conservation efforts, with proceeds benefiting 21 NGOs working in the US and around the world.
This collaboration between indigenous artisans, contemporary artists and cultural institutions will raise millions of dollars for wildlife conservation efforts. These elephants are ready to be gatekeepers and companions in gardens, museums and institutions, a heritage for coming generations.
The elephants come in four sizes and are created by using dried Lantana camara wrapped around a steel rebar frame and coated with Osmo Oil for protection. It takes six to nine months to make each one. So, what does an elephant cost? A matriarch is $18,000, is 7.5 x 12 x 4ft and its average weight is 660 pounds, while a mighty tusker is 770 pounds and costs $22,000. An adolescent is $14,000, while a winsome baby elephant is 220 pounds and costs $8,000. Each elephant is twinned with a conservation NGO, whose work directly benefits from the proceeds of their sculpture sales.
By now, the herd of 100 elephants has left New York City, and the majority have been bought by institutions and individuals to benefit conservation efforts. Each time an elephant is sold, there’s another one ready to replace it, so that the goal is to raise millions of dollars for sustenance and for various animal-based charities.
Mighty herds are waiting to explore other parts of the United States with their message of coexistence. These peaceful animals eat nothing, stand immobile forever but evoke so much love and awareness for all wildlife and spread a message of love and tolerance. From New York, they will travel to Miami Beach in Florida, Houston in Texas, Browning in Montana, Jackson Hole in Wyoming and finally to Los Angeles in July 2025.
Awareness of elephants and indigenous people works hand in hand.
The herd will travel through the unceded traditional lands, waters and territories of the Narragansett, Lenape, Tequesta, Calusa, Miccosukee, Seminole, Shoshone-Bannock, Apsaalooké (Crow), Eastern Shoshone, Cheyenne, Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh and Chumash peoples.
Notes the Elephant Migration website: “We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced occupation of their territory. In gratitude, we honor the wisdom of past, present and future elders and community members, and the enduring strength of their cultures and connections to the earth.”
The good news is that these elephants are actually clearing up the forests and generating income with their plant-based bodies. Not only are the forests being allowed to breathe again by the removal of the toxic shrub, but indigenous tribes are getting a new lease on life and livelihood.
According to the site thegreatelephantmigration.org, the elephants are celebrated on the world stage, commanding a high price by notable collectors, and finding homes in some of the world’s most celebrated gardens, including the official residence of India’s president, and of Britain’s king and queen.
This is amongst the notable indigenous enterprises in India. It is especially significant because for thousands of years indigenous communities have been guardians of the environment. Although they are today only around 6% of the global population, they protect 80% of the biodiversity left on Earth. This effort celebrates indigenous knowledge and enables them to continue to be custodians and stewards of the forests in a modern context.
Just as elephant families are matriarchal, with herds led by an older female, this venture, too, has a matriarchy: many noted powerful women in today’s world are supporting it and standing up for a new world order which respects the values of coexistence of all species.
A brief quote from David Suzuki captures the spirit of the Great Elephant Migration and shows why it must be something we all try to follow: “The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a Deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity—then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.”
The planet is our mother, and all species are our biological kin. This one line can save us from the possible darkness of the future.