Aaranyak in coordination with Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) conducted a workshop on ‘Wildlife Acts and wildlife-related crimes’ at the section HQ of SSB office in Rangia under Kamrup district.
The workshop was organised on Tuesday as invited by the office of the Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Sashatra Seema Bal (SSB) Sector HQ at Rangia to raise awareness among different enforcement agencies on the importance and scale of seriousness of wildlife crime and its effect on biodiversity and human health.
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The workshop was attended by the representatives from 27th, 24th, 64th and 54th battalion along with
officials from the SSB HQ.
The programme was graced by Jagdeep Pal Singh, DIG, SSB HQ, Rangia.
Dr. Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, secretary-general & CEO, Aaranyak delivered a lecture on the need of wildlife crime prevention for national security.
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Talukdar urged the participants about their crucial role in vigilance.
Speaking at the workshop, Talukdar said, “Socio-political unrest can severely harm wildlife. Moreover, today’s poachers are very well connected and perform well-organized crimes in our jungles with sophisticated arms.”
He said, “The undulating landscape of Northeast India makes it very unique to the rest of India. Hence, its preservation is very important.”
Dr. Bibhuti Prasad Lahkar, Manas landscape administrator of Aaranyak, made a presentation on the current scenario of Manas landscape and highlighted that Manas has 23 Schedule-I animals under Wild Life Protection Act (WLPA), 1972.
He also added that it is the only national park in Assam, which has been accorded with all 5 status consists of National Park, World Heritage Site, Important Bird area, Tiger Reserve and Biosphere Reserve and that makes it one of the most important ecologically sensitive and important zones of Assam.
Dr. Jimmy Borah from the legal and advocacy division of Aaranyak and Hiten Bora, intelligence assistant, WCCB, spoke about wildlife crimes from a global perspective and on intelligence gathering respectively.
From Aaranyak, Binita Baruwati and Ivy Farheen also assisted to make the workshop successful.
One of the fascinating components of the workshop was a panel discussion in which the panellists Dr. Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, Dr. Bibhuti Prasad Lahkar, Dr. Jimmy Borah and Hiten Bora provided a variety of valuable perspectives on the issues.
The highlighted issues included the traditional practice of hunting by the local tribal communities inside the park, safeguards for enforcement agencies like SSB under the WLPA,1972 and frequent man-elephant conflicts because of human behaviour.
Assistant commandants Prabhankar, 64 Bn, Boroma and Rohit Sharma from Daodhara Border Outpost expressed their gratitude towards the organisations as they learned many new things.
The DIG, SSB-HQ, Rangia thanked Aaranyak and WCCB for conducting the workshop for the young officers.