A parliamentary panel has asked the environment ministry to undertake a study on movement of animals from their natural habitats to suitable alternate habitation which may lead to reducing the number of Man-animal conflicts.
Such conflicts are rising and remains an "area of concern", parliamentary standing committee on science and technology and environment in its 313th report of demands for grants (2018-19) of the environment ministry said.
"The Committee is of the view that in-spite of the steps initiated by the Ministry, the cases of man-animal conflict are rising and it still remains an area of concern.
"The Committee recommends that in addition to the steps initiated, the Ministry should undertake a scientific study on the possible movement of monkeys, elephants, tigers etc. from their natural habitat to suitable alternate habitation which may lead to reducing the number of human-animal conflicts," the committee headed by Congress leader Anand Sharma said.
Man-animal conflict occurs when growing human population overlaps with established wildlife territory, creating reduction of resources or life to some people and or wild animals.
During the meeting of the Committee held on February 12, the panel drew attention of the Ministry to the rising cases of man-animal conflict, the report said.
The Committee cited instances of tigers spilling out of the national parks, walking into the agricultural fields, coming into conflict with people etc. It also pointed out that Nilgai, blue boars and wild boars were damaging farmer's crops too.
The Ministry informed the committee that Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) is one of the biggest problems for elephant management and conservation as it creates considerable economic hardships for the affected farmers.
The Ministry told the committee that under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme Project Elephant it provided financial and technical assistance to state governments for conservation of elephant and dealing with human-elephant conflicts.
In association with an NGO, Project Elephant Division is propagating use of low cost, innovative methods, using local material for crop guarding by villagers to reduce impact of crop depredation in Northern western Ghats in Karnataka.
It also said these methods promote use of honey bees, fences, fire crackers, rotating fire balls, chili smoke, chili curtains, elephant alert alarm etc and adoption of these methods has reduced crop damage by elephant upto 50 per cent.
Meanwhile, the issue of over-population of tigers and the resulting spilling of tigers in the human habitat in certain areas and their relocation to other areas was also raised by the committee.
The Committee although expressed happiness about the increasing trend in the tiger population in the country but said that in some of the areas they are over-populated and in other areas they fall short of required members.
"The Committee, therefore, recommends that the Ministry should identify the areas where translocation of tigers can be carried out and take necessary action in this regard.
"This will also, to an extent, solve the problem of man-tiger conflict in certain areas where tigers are spilling out of their natural habitat," it said.
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