Kohima: The Nagaland government is planning to develop a policy to address the issue of human-elephant conflict, following concerns raised during the recent Assembly session.
Commissioner and Secretary, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department, Y Kikheto Sema along with the department officials and GIS team visited the Elephant affected areas in Wokha district on Tuesday and Wednesday.
During the visit, Sema informed the community elders and leaders of the areas that the department will work out a policy and strategy to mitigate the human-animal conflict and ensure a peaceful co-existence among the two.
The field visit was undertaken to take stock of the human-elephant conflict and meet the affected communities of the area. On Tuesday, the officials visited Mekokla village and had a detailed interaction with the village elders and leaders.
On Wednesday, the team had a meeting with the Englan Range Village Council Union at Doyang Hydro. The team met Yanmhon Area Public Organisation and visited recent affected areas at Liphi and Hayiyan villages.
The GIS team took drone images of the affected areas to collect additional data from such areas. They had a detailed interaction with the affected villages, community elders of more than 20 villages from Sanis and Bhandari Sub-Division in the presence of Lotha Hohos at Town Community Hall, Bhandari.
Kikheto Sema highlighted that the population of elephants in the world is over 5 lakh and India has an elephant population of around 30,000 and more than 10,000 in the Northeast.
Assam has the maximum numbers of elephants in the Northeast with more than 5,700, Meghalaya with 1,754, Arunachal Pradesh with 1,614 and Nagaland has around 446. Intanki National Park area has a higher population of elephants followed by Wokha, Mon and adjoining districts of Mokokchung, Zunheboto and Longleng.
While understanding the problems of the affected people, Sema observed that due to various developmental activities of humans, the traditional corridors where the elephants migrate to and from the forest of Assam have been blocked. The present elephant population is forced to settle in in the limited Range of forest falling in the conflicted areas.
He acknowledged the difficulties faced by the department staff and informed that the department would review the manpower and resources with logistics so that the forest staff are also well trained and well equipped to tackle any emergency and exigencies.
Understanding the needs, he said that the department has recently posted one Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF) to Baghty Forest Range. For the shortage of staff, he assured that the department will work out and that staffs from the other divisions will be posted to areas where there is shortage.
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He also appealed to the community leaders to share their problems and experience so that strategies and action plans can be made to reduce the man-elephant conflicts. With regard to compensation related applications, he assured that the applications would be forwarded to appropriate authorities for consideration.
The Department will also make a comprehensive plan to tackle human-elephant conflict mitigation in the state, with special reference to Wokha and neighbouring districts, he added.
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