Successful Workshop on Further Development of a Competency Framework and Curriculum on Human Wildlife Conflict Mitigation

21 Nov, 2018

A workshop for further development of the competency framework and curriculum was organised by the project “Human Wildlife Conflict Mitigation (HWC) in India” at Hotel Regenta Orkos in Haridwar, Uttarakhand on 20th-21st November 2018. Contributions from 30 participants, consisting of international and national experts from various fields such as capacity development, wildlife and veterinary sciences, media and communications, social sciences as well as officials from the State Forest Department, made the discussions very productive.

The aim of the workshop was to develop the zero drafts of modularised curricula on HWC for selected training groups in India including forest departments, veterinary sciences, media and civil society. The workshop also specifically aimed at identifying case studies from Uttarakhand that can serve as examples of good practices and learnings.

Speaking on the occasion, Sh. Monish Mullick, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) & Chief Wildlife Warden of Uttarakhand emphasised the relevance of the current curricula development process for facilitating knowledge and experience sharing among different states of India under the overall umbrella of the HWC project. Dr. Dhananjai Mohan, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) highlighted the significance of curricula due to their long-lasting effect as they would be used by several generations of forest officials. Sh. Sanatan, Director of Rajaji Tiger Reserve and Sh. Akash Verma, Divisional Forest Officer of Haridwar Division, shared insights on human wildlife conflict and mitigation measures being implemented in the Haridwar-Rajaji area.

Dr Neeraj Khera, Team Leader of the HWC Project-GIZ, presented the detailed capacity development approach that the project is using to develop the curricula as well as for the implementation of trainings. She also shared the draft competency framework developed under the project. The discussions focussed on the draft competency framework, identification of key training groups for implementing the curricula, key anchoring institutions, and refining the learning outcomes of different planned courses. The participants visited specific locations around Rajaji Tiger Reserve, as part of a brief field exposure visit, to develop a common understanding of the issues to also to interact with the front-line officers engaged in HWC mitigation measures. On the second day of the workshop, participants engaged in intensive group work leading to elaboration of module structures and contents for different training groups.

The workshop ended with a reflection session with all participants sharing their views with further commitments to be part of the curriculum development process.

The participants included Sh. Praveen Kumar Sharma (Deputy Director, UFTA Haldwani), a very dedicated team of front-line officers from Uttarakhand including Sh. Rajendra Mohan Nautiyal, Sh. Pradeep Kumar, Sh. Mayank Kumar, Kaka, Farman Malik, and Rajesh Kumar; faculty and experts from the Wildlife Institute of India incl. Dr C Ramesh, Dr. Pradeep Malik, Dr PC Tyagi, Ms. Upma Manral, Dr. Stotra Chakraborti, Dr. BC Chaudhary and Dr. Kafil Hussain; and experts from media and NGOs incl. Sh. Sanjay Sondhi (Titli trust), Ms. Alka Tomar (CEC), Ms. Perrie Subramaniam (Professor, Department of mass communication, St. Xaviers College Mumbai), Ms. Pragati Paul (AJK center for Mass communication, Jamia Delhi), Ms. Sharada Balasubramanium (Journalist, Karnataka), Dr Michael Fisher (DFS Germany), Dr Floris Deodatus (DFS Germany), Sh. Ajay Desai, Ms. Priya Poonia (GIZ) and Mr Vimarsh Sharma (Junior Technical Expert, HWC Project, GIZ).

The documents developed during the workshop are working documents and will be further enriched with ideas, refined drafts for all target groups and identification of case studies. Examples from Karnataka and West Bengal will also be included in the curricula as cases of good practices and learnings.