NEW DELHI: Taking a serious note of situation of
human-wildlife conflicts
in Kerala, especially in
Wayanad district
,
Union environment minister
Bhupender Yadav on Thursday accused the state government and local representatives of ignoring the escalating man-animal conflict in the region, and announced multiple mitigation measures, including creating “site specific elephant proof fences/walls”, to deal with such a situation in the state and neighbouring karnataka and Tamil Nadu in future.
“This is rather unfortunate and has led to people losing lives,” said Yadav while pointing at the apathy of state government and local representatives during his visit to Wayanad which is a Lok Sabha parliamentary constituency of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Yadav visited the region after Gandhi met with the family members of a forest department watcher who was fatally trampled by a wild elephant in Wayanad. Since the watcher’s death triggered a massive protest, Gandhi last week abruptly halted his ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ in Uttar Pradesh and visited Wayanad last week.
After reviewing the ground situation there, Yadav on Thursday announced that the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Coimbatore will be developed as a Centre for handholding Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu on mitigation of human-wildlife conflicts.
It was shared during his meeting with Wayanad district collector, local MLAs and panchayat leaders that the environment ministry has sanctioned around Rs 16 crore during 2023-24 under various schemes to the State of Kerala.
In order to have better coordination among states, the ministry will facilitate convening inter-state coordination meetings and assist in preparing corridor management plans in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
“Regarding the permission for capturing, translocating or hunting of wild animals for mitigating human-wildlife conflicts, the minister informed that the Section 11 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 empowers the State Chief Wildlife Warden to take such actions required to manage such conflicts,” said an official.
Yadav also visited the houses of Prajeesh, who was killed by a tiger, and Paul and Ajeesh, who were killed in attacks by elephants, in Wayanad.
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