AP Explores Ways To Reduce Human-Wildlife Conflict for Their Coexistence
Vijayawada: The state government is exploring ways and means to deal with human-wildlife conflict and promote their coexistence.
To begin with, the forest department has mainly identified conflict issues between humans and elephants, leopards, tigers, sloth bears, oliveback turtles, Indian wild boars, macaques and snakes.
Foresters have identified geographical hotspots related to human-elephant conflict in districts such as Srikakulam, Parvathipuram Manya, Chittoor, Tirupati and Annamayya. They realized that the clashes resulted in damage to crops such as tomatoes, mangoes, bananas, paddy, sugarcane and also led to human deaths in villages at the forest edge.
They are taking mitigating measures by setting up an elephant task force to monitor elephant movements in Chittoor-Seshachalam territory, have set up elephant camps in Naniyala and Musalamadugu and roped elephants in Kumkis to move them back to the interior forests from outlying villages.
They also use modern technologies such as an artificial intelligence-based solar-powered automatic detection and deterrence system and vertical hanging of solar-powered fences to repel elephants.
Due to human-leopard conflict, foresters realized that littering in forest fringe areas attracted wild boars and leopards and called for proper garbage management.
Regarding the human-tiger conflict, foresters state that tigers have expanded from the Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve to corridors such as Palnadu, Kadapa, Annamayya, Tirupati, Nellore, Eluru and Paderu. No incident of a tiger killing humans has been reported in AP so far, but there have been repeated deaths of cattle.
Regarding the human-sloth bear conflict, foresters state that conflicts occur at the forest edges in all districts. Reasons for this include fragmentation and loss of habitat, as well as accumulation of garbage near temple sites.
They have adopted mitigation measures such as habitat protection and restoration and appropriate garbage management. They also monitor their movements by forming teams and setting camera traps.
Regarding human-oliveback turtle conflict, foresters have identified hotspots of nesting activity along the coastal belt of AP in Srikakulam, Kakinada, Bapatla, East Godavari, Krishna and Nellore districts.
Foresters noted that accidental deaths occurred due to entanglement in fishing nets and disruption of nesting areas and hatcheries during the breeding season. They have implemented mitigation measures such as seasonal closures of coastal areas during nesting and mating periods and encouraging the use of Turtle Exclusion devices in fishermen’s nets.
Foresters have also identified hotspots, causes of conflict and areas of Indian Wild Boars, Macaques and snakes and initiated steps to protect them and facilitate their coexistence with humans.
Shantipriya Pande, additional chief conservator of forests, said: “We consider human-wildlife conflicts as a serious problem and are taking a number of steps to ensure co-existence of both humans and wild animals.”
Infographics:
The forest department is organizing a webinar with various experts on January 31 to discuss human-wildlife conflicts and find technology-based solutions.
Foresters will present their action plan to deal with human-wildlife conflicts in AP before members of the parliamentary advisory committee.
AP comes under the initiative of HANUMAN (Healing and Nurturing Units for Assistance and Care of Wildlife) to move from human-wildlife conflict to coexistence by taking a series of measures such as identification of species hotspots, formation of rapid response teams, training of stakeholders and use of technology.
