Maiden meeting of district-level panel to ease human-wildlife conflict held

Industries Minister P. Rajeeve has sought arrangements to ensure that wild animals have enough food within the forest as a potential way to ease human-wildlife conflict.

He was addressing the maiden meeting of the district-level committee, which was formed to ease human-wildlife conflict. Nine panchayats within the Malayattoor forest range have been identified as suffering from wildlife-related problems. The committee was constituted with the goal of reducing human-wildlife tension in these panchayats.

P. Rajeeve is the chairperson of the committee and Malayattoor Divisional Forest Officer P.K. Asif is the convener. District Collector N.S.K. Umesh and District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural) M. Hemalatha are members. The committee will meet every month to review the progress of work.

The meeting discussed various programmes of the Forest department to mitigate human-wildlife conflict. Mr. Rajeeve said the Forest officials’ demand to form rapid reaction force in Kuttampuzha would be taken up with the authorities concerned. Mr. Umesh said people’s representatives would also be invited to the next meeting.