Developing an SOP for Mitigating Human-Leopard Conflict: Meeting of Coordinators and Authors

25 Jul, 2019

The Indo-German Project “Human Wildlife Conflict Mitigation (HWC)” in India organised a two-day workshop (24th-25th July 2019, Mumbai) for authors of the SOP for mitigating Human-Leopard Conflict for further development of the document.

Day 1 started with a welcome note and an overview of the HWC project by Dr Neeraj Khera. The day’s sessions focused on the overall concept and plan of the guidelines based upon prior workshops. Dr Vidya Athreya (Coordinating Lead Author) presented the current outline of the SOP document, followed by a discussion on the approach and key elements for developing the SOP. There was further discussion on consolidating the content in specific sections of the SOP document under the guidance of Mr Sunil Limaye, APPCF (WL), Maharashtra Forest Department.

The day ended with a brainstorming session on media engagement focusing on development of an outline of an SOP for Media engagement with participation of media experts and environmental journalists working on HWC issues in India, like Mr Ramesh Menon, Mr Ananda Banerjee, Mr Ranjeet Jhadav and Mr Virat Singh.

Day 2 started with a discussion on knowledge gaps and specific information needed vis-à-vis the Leopard SOP to be filled-in via studies and surveys that will be undertaken by the project. This was followed by a field visit to Sanjay Gandhi National Park and a presentation on the good practices on HWC mitigation, especially human-leopard conflict mitigation by the forest officials involved in park management as well as an interaction with the rescue team.

The workshop ended with the finalisation of the work plan for completing the document and confirmation on the presentation of the sub-zero draft at the National Workshop.