Naresh S
Panaji : The Forest Department has prepared its first statewide human-wildlife conflict mitigation plan, identifying vulnerable villages, talukas and species-specific conflict hotspots. The plan has proposed habitat interventions to reduce wildlife movement into human settlements.
Department sources said the plan has been prepared using primary and secondary data collected over the past five years, including wildlife rescue records, compensation data and information from the Agriculture Department on crop losses caused by animals.
The department has identified villages and talukas most prone to human-wildlife conflict and analysed the problem at the individual species level. Areas vulnerable to species such as leopards and gaurs have also been mapped, officials said.
The document, which was approved by the state government in late August, seeks to address one of the factors that may draw animals out of forests, the availability of food and water outside forest areas.
According to a senior Forest Department official involved in the exercise, “conflict hotspots often have agricultural resources, fruit-bearing plantations and other food sources close to forest areas. The availability of prey in such areas can, in turn, attract predators, creating a broader prey-predator cycle around human settlements”.
As part of the mitigation strategy, the department plans to strengthen forest habitats around identified hotspots by increasing grasslands, developing more waterholes and planting more food-bearing species.
The objective is to improve the availability of resources within forests and assess whether this reduces the movement of animals into human-dominated areas, the senior official said.
The department plans to implement these interventions over the next three to five years. The proposed works have received government approval, while financial sanctions are awaited, following which implementation will begin in the identified areas, officials said.
The department will also assess the effectiveness of the interventions over time and introduce additional measures wherever required.
The data used for the plan also includes compensation-related information. In Goa, compensation for crop loss caused by wildlife is handled by the Agriculture Department, while the Forest Department deals with compensation relating to loss of life, injury and property damage caused by wildlife, officials explained.
They said this data, along with rescue and conflict records, helped the department identify areas where human-wildlife interactions are most frequent.
The plan comes as the Forest Department continues to deal with a range of wildlife entering human habitations, from snakes and other smaller animals to leopards and gaurs.
Rather than relying only on response measures after animals enter human settlements, the department’s approach is to improve habitat conditions around identified conflict zones and monitor whether better availability of food and water within forests can help keep wildlife within forest areas.
