KV Network

Man –Animal conflict, a cause for concern

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Peer Muhammad Amir Qureshi
Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) occurs when animals pose a direct and recurring threat to the livelihood or safety of people, leading to the persecution of that species. Retaliation against the species blamed often ensues, leading to conflict about what should be done to remedy the situation.
Although this is not a new scenario — people and wildlife have coexisted for millennia — it is one that is becoming much more frequent, serious and widespread and a global concern for conservation and development alike. There are immense challenges in addressing HWC around the world, in particular because underlying cultural, political and economic aspects that shape these conflicts are often very complex and poorly understood.
Therefore, conservation strategies for conflict-prone species need to consider not only on current scenarios but also anticipate emerging conflicts in order to ensure sustainable coexistence. Much research and collective experience across the world has shown that each case of conflict is different from the next, making it difficult to devise easily transferable solutions. Therefore, interdisciplinary approaches are essential to understanding what a given conflict is about, knowing what is needed for mitigation of a given conflict, and ensuring access to the necessary skills and resources.
As countries increasingly grapple with this multi-faceted challenge, HWC is beginning to appear in national policies and strategies for wildlife, development and poverty alleviation. Almost every country in the world hosts some form of HWC, and highly biodiverse developing countries particularly struggle with this issue.
Efforts to address the obvious problems without fully considering the underlying socio-political conflicts fuelling the situation often result in only temporary fixes or, worse, exacerbating pre-existing tensions.
Coordinated and collaborative conservation actions are therefore required to deliver meaningful results and allow communities to shift from conflict to coexistence with wildlife. Kashmir valley witnessed a surge in the Human-Wildlife conflict cases since one decade due to many reasons which include competition for food, space, deforestation and encroachments.
Most of the Human-wild animal conflict takes place outside protected area networks like orchards, human settlements, forest area where deforestation and encroachments have taken place.
Two minor girls were mauled to death in Budgam and Ganderbal which raged people of these districts with agony and who even protested against the wildlife Department. The Jammu and Kashmir wildlife (Protection) act was enacted in 1978 to meet the objectives contained therein. Since the creation of full-fledged department of Wildlife Protection, in 1982 the state government has taken as series of major for conservation of forest/ protected areas and the wildlife therein.
The government has not notified about 16000 sq. kms as the protected area network (PAN) which is being managed through anti poaching/ anti grazing activities, habitat management, plantation, soil and water conservation, fire protection, development of infrastructure, providing supplemental feed etc.
Prior to this J&K Game Preservation Department has been created under Game Preservation Act, 1942 to protect and preserve the Game “In the state” which include the few species of wild animals and birds considered to be important from hunting point of view as a sport. The state has amended the J&K wildlife protection act of 1978 on the lines of Indian wildlife protection act 1972.
The schedule have been revised and now there is complete ban on hunting and no. on endangered species of wild animals and plants have been brought to the Schedule-I and Schedule-IV of the act to afford them utmost protection. Apart from this wild plants have also been brought within the preview of this act.
Since from one decade there has been a dramatic spike in cases official figures reveal that nearly 200 people lost their lives and over 2,000 were injured in the human-wild animal conflict across Jammu and Kashmir since 2011.Out of the total figures of deaths and injuries, Kashmir reported 118 deaths and 1877 injuries while the Jammu region reported 78 deaths and 448 injuries.
According to data, in 2011-12, at least 32 people were killed and 365 were injured, the following year (2012-13) recorded 16 deaths and 305 injuries while in 2013-14, 32 deaths and 369 injuries were reported.
The role of J&K wildlife Department remained undistinguished or inadequate in one way or the other from the sufferings of their own employees to the ex-gratia provided to people which got wounded by these wild animals and have to wait for years for ex-gratia in paper work etc.
How to tackle Human-Wildlife conflict
Knowing all these consequences of human-wildlife conflict, it is imperative to implement strict mitigation strategies for resolving human-wildlife conflicts. Different hitherto strategies utilized include lethal control, translocation of problematic wild animals, population size regulation, and endangered species preservation.
Translocation of problematic wild animal species from a site of conflict to a new place is a mitigation technique used in the past, although recent research has shown that this approach can have detrimental impacts on species and is largely ineffective since it can decrease survival rates and lead to their extreme dispersal movements.
Recent methodology to resolve the human-wildlife conflict must utilize comprehensive and cross-sectoral collaborative processes between forestry, wildlife, agriculture, livestock, and other relevant sectors that will surely help in alleviating this issue on a larger scale.
Additionally, it is the duty of all stakeholders, and experts of the concerned sectors to improve imparting community education and the perception of the general public regarding animals. Not only this, government authorities must offer monetary compensation for losses sustained due to human-wildlife conflict, since such actions will deter the need for retaliatory killings of animals, and financially encourage the co-existence of humans and wildlife.
The use of guard dogs is also one of the effective strategies in mitigating human-carnivore conflict around the globe and it can lower the loss of livestock by 60%. Lastly, it must be kept in mind that mitigation strategies for managing human-wildlife conflict vary significantly depending on location and type of conflict. Regardless of approach, the most successful solutions are those that will include local communities in the planning, implementation, and maintenance. Therefore, it is time we all stand together in combating human wildlife conflict through proper scientific methodologies that will surely help humans and wild animal species to live in peace and harmony.
(The author hails from District Ganderbal and is DMLT student)

 


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