Today is the day for the mighty pachyderms. The animal is family-oriented and has the capacity to feel and emote a range of emotions. They are important for maintaining biodiversity of forests specially the rain forests.
Elephant Reintroduction Foundation proposed to celebrate World’s Elephant Day in 2011 to create awareness about the giants and stop their illegal poaching. Crucial to wild elephants’ protection is human-animal conflict. Many fatal conflicts have been reported in our country in recent past. In Jharkhand alone more than 50 people have died cause of conflict between elephants and humans in the past seven months. The question is what the steps should be taken to check this menace?
In an exclusive conservation with Indian Masterminds, the Former Principle Chief Conservator of Forest, Jharkhand Mr. Bankim C Nigam spoke about the importance of conversation and how we are lacking behind. The retired forest officer also served as the special secretary of forest, Jharkhand and is also a member of expert appraisal committee.
CONVERSATION FOR HUMAN EXISTENCE
Highlighting the importance of conservation he said, “The Gene pool of wild animals is very important and we hardly have 10% knowledge of that. One of the glaring examples of the gene pool are ‘zoonotic diseases’ like Covid. There are viruses which are good to live in the gene pool of animal & create a specific kind of balance where our lives also become sustainable on earth. They need to stay there, if we disturb this eco-system or web of interaction between the viruses, animal & human being then the problem comes. So, the conservation of gene pool of wild animals like is important for our sustainability on earth.”
The officer also said that like some human fall on to the wrong side of law and start committing crime but that doesn’t mean we should eradicate the while human race. Similarly, in case of human-animals conflict there may be few rogue animals (elephants) which creates this problem so we need to identify them and take their best care.
“Besides this, elephants are very large in size and required large quantity of food. Food comes from forest and every day the forest cover is decreasing so they move out for it and create problems for neighbourhood human habitations. So, we need to focus on that. There lies a dilemma between conservation and development but we need to strike the balance to ensure our own survival on this planet”, added the officer.
MORE FUNDS AND DATA IS REQUIRED
The officer also emphasized that development is inevitable, we need that. In this case, we should be mindful in taking up any development project and try to protect the habitats of wild so they don’t come near human population and everyone is safe.
The second most important thing is data. “With data we can devise our strategy. The data consist of the numbers of animals or in this case elephant in any area, where they are moving, is any human population lives in the way. If we obtain these data prior, we can many such conflicts.”
During his own service, Mr. Nigam created a special wildlife website and an app. The government distributed phones among the people including the foresters who have the ground information. They could put the information on the app about the number and movement of the elephant. That then used to be corroborated in the server and action were being taken based on that. Mr. Nigam claims to have saved lives of many pachyderms with this strategy.
