Need assessment for a common platform for States to discuss and manage human wildlife conflict

04 Apr, 2018

The Indo-German Technical Cooperation on Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation facilitated a session on “Need assessment for a common platform for neighbouring states of West Bengal to discuss and manage human wildlife conflict”, during the regional meeting of the Chief Wildlife Wardens of the Eastern and North Eastern region of India, on 4 April 2018 in Kolkata.

The session was conducted to seek answers on the following questions: What are the common human wildlife conflict issues among the States in this region? Where is the gap in terms of ‘technical capacity’ vis-à-vis addressing the issue? Can a common discussion platform help plugging these gaps? What is the existing mechanism for a dialogue on HWC mitigation measures among states? What should be the architecture of this platform?

The session was chaired by Sh. M S Negi, Additional Director General MoEFCC, with presence of Sh. Soumitra Dasgupta, IGF (WL) MoEFCC, Sh. Roy P Tomas Joint Director (WL), and the participants included chief Wildlife Wardens of the States of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Sikkim, as well as senior officials from West Bengal Forest department, Dr. Konrad Uebelhoer, Programme Director- Indo-German Biodiversity Programme, and Dr Neeraj Khera, Team Leader HWC Project GIZ.

The session resulted in a clear understanding of the need of a common platform to discuss human wildlife conflict mitigation measures among the States in the region. The discussions in the session also facilitated the identification of specific technical capacity development measures where the HWC project can extend its support.