A herd of painted Indian elephant statues may soon materialise all along London’s famous Downing Street that leads to the residence of the British Prime Minister. The idea behind the planned display is to highlight the plight of the endangered Asian (Indian) elephant that is so dear to the heart of the British public, reared on the stories of Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli.

This week, Ruth Powys, Director of the Elephant Family charity, is celebrating the outstanding success of auctioning off some 262 artificial elephants that were first exhibited earlier this summer as an Elephant Parade exhibition on the streets and parks of the British capital. The exhibition had the enthusiastic backing of both Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall. Charles’ brother-in-law Mark Shand, a travel writer and author of the best selling book ‘Travels On My Elephant’, has also played a major role in promoting the exhibition that has managed to raise £4.1 million (over Rs 30 crore).

Other supporting celebrities include British film and TV personality Joanna Lumley, who commented, “All those who grew up with Colonel Hathi in the Jungle Book film, or those even older (like me) who remember him from the book of Mowgli by Kipling, must be shaken to know that without our help the magnificent Asian elephant may die out altogether. How dreadful to think that we may cause the extinction of this giant in our lives: and how fabulous to know that by supporting Elephant Parade and Elephant Family we can turn the tide and ensure their survival.”

Film actress Goldie Hawn said, “Asian elephants captured my heart many years ago. Anyone who loves elephants, as I do, will love Elephant Parade… I am a proud patron of Elephant Family.”

The idea of lining Downing Street with elephant statues was explained by Powys, who said it would generate even more publicity and support for a petition to save the Asian elephant. “When we talk about elephants going up Downing Street, we’re not talking about live elephants,” Powys said. “Can you imagine the reactions of the animal rights people? We’d be firebombed. I mean the painted elephants. We’d like to have a parade of artificial elephants, painted, located on Downing Street to help deliver the petition of 100,000 signatures that we’re aiming for.”

“This is an objective we haven’t yet achieved. When the elephants were on the street, it was wonderful to be able to educate the public and it was incredible to raise so much money for the solution. But the third objective we have yet to meet and on which we are focusing our effort is generating signatures on our petition so we can start influencing the way the UK government invests in biodiversity and aiming to put the Asian elephant higher on their agenda. We can only do that when we have 100,000 signatures…”

In India, working with both the Wildlife Trust and the Wildlife Protection Society, Elephant Family’s efforts so far have concentrated on the North East, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala. In each of these three areas, the aim is to identify and protect elephant corridors or migratory routes that elephants use. Elephant Family’s aim is to raise £50 million over the next 10 years so that the land associated with the elephant corridors can be bought and preserved for elephants.

“Basically, elephant corridors are strips of land that connect areas of forest that have become separated,” explains Powys. “Often it’s because people have started living there, communities have cropped up, or maybe there’s a road or a mine. Most of the time when people are living there, they want to move out because they didn’t realise when they moved there that they were in the middle of a migratory route. So what happens is that we would move out the people who want to move and buy them a new house and a plot of land very near to where they were living but outside of the conflict area. So then the elephants can once again move freely. By doing that, you’re helping many other endangered animals as well,” she said.