New Delhi, Aug 10 (UNI) Environment, Forests and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday emphasised the need of imparting proper training to forest staff and more practical solutions to prevent human-elephant conflicts.
Mr Javadekar said that the elephant is a very intelligent creature so it is not easy to create barriers to hold them within the forests.
Therefore it becomes very important for the states to share best practices that are safe for humans as well as elephants to further avert the conflicts which result in loss of lives.
'In our culture animals and trees are worshipped as an integral part of our life which need to be protected'.
The Minister made the observation while releasing a booklet on “Best practices of Human-Elephant Conflict Management in India” two days ahead of World Elephant day.
He said that India is proud of its flora and fauna and is home to 60 per cent of the Asian elephants and 77 per cent of World's total Tiger population.
'Despite having around two-and-a-half per cent of the total world's land share, our country is home to 16 per cent of world's fauna, ' he said, adding that the culture is to accept every creature and co-exist amicably.
He shared an incident of his visit to a village very close to a forest where he locals mentioned their problems of crops and land being destroyed and people being killed by the elephants. To his surprise, when asked for suggestions to tackle the menace, the villagers suggested making food and water available for the pachyderms inside the jungle to prevent them from venturing out.
'The idea of water and fodder augmentation by the farmers for keeping the elephants in forests , we have started working on it and are also conducting a survey , wherein after the data comes , the things will turn out to be better in the times to come.'
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