Asian elephants are icons of their land and gardeners of their ecosystems. They are an important part of the places they live in, but populations are declining. Faced with habitat loss and resulting human-elephant conflict, as well as poaching, there are less than 50,000 Asian elephants left in the wild today. WWF is working in 10 of the 13 Asian elephant range countries to prevent and mitigate human-elephant conflict, build ranger capacity and support protection efforts, help maintain movement corridors, and a myriad other actions to conserve this magnificent species.
Monish Siripurapu, an architect based in New Delhi, created a biomimicry cooling system inspired by the structure of a beehive and customized through advanced computational analysis and modern calibration techniques. The device passes water through earthen cones that facilitate evaporative cooling, using little energy and zero ozone depleting or carbon-intensive refrigerants.
