By OUR STAFF REPORTER
Dehradun, 8 Dec: Central Academy for State Forest Service, Dehradun, a premier institute in India to train State Forest Service Officers organised a three-day training workshop (6 to 8 December) on “Human-Wildlife Conflict Management” for Indian Forest Service Officers, sponsored by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change.
The IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Human-Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence Specialist Group defines human-wildlife conflict as: struggles that emerge when the presence or behaviour of wildlife poses an actual or perceived, direct, and recurring threat to human interests or needs.
Effective planning and implementation of human-wildlife conflict mitigation measures requires consideration of good principles in community led conservation, in collaboration with the communities affected.
The valedictory function of this training workshop was conducted today. It was chaired by Anurag Bharadwaj, Director, Forest Education, Dehradun, Union Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change.
He welcomed the participants, gave an overview of Human Wildlife situation at the national level and outlined the achievements of the workshop, apart from congratulating the participants for successful completion of the course.
Meenakshi Joshi, Principal, Central Academy for State Forest Service, Dehradun, and Amlendu Pathak, Course Director, and faculty members on this occasion thanked everyone for meeting goals of the workshop and felicitated everyone and distributed certificates to the participants.
The day also had a panel discussion session which was chaired by DVS Khati, IFS (Retd). Nitin Kakodkar, IFS (Retd), Dr Dhananjai Mohan, (PCCF, Uttarakhand Forest Department), and Dr PK Malik, Scientist (Retd) were eminent panellists of the session.
DVS Khati emphasised on mitigating the conflict in a holistic way with involvement of people creating education and developing livelihood opportunities.
