Taking note of the recent incidents of man-animal conflicts in the state of Kerala, especially in Wayanad district, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav has undertaken a field visit to take stock of the situation.

Yadav visited Bandipur National Park (which is adjoining Wayanad) in Karnataka and Wayanad in Kerala along with senior officers from his ministry and Scientists of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for a first-hand appraisal of the problem of human-wildlife conflict in the region, starting from Wednesday.

The minister on Thursday chaired a meeting in the Wayanad District Collectorate, Kalpetta. The Director General of Forests along with officers from the ministry and WII were present.

Yadav also discussed the issue in detail with the people’s representatives including MLAs and district panchayat president.

Notably, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who represents the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, visited his parliamentary constituency and took stock of the situation last week.

In the meeting, the minister has taken a slew of decisions after detailed discussions.

The Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Coimbatore which is now under the WII, will be developed as a Centre for handholding with states like Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu on mitigation of human wildlife conflicts, as per a communiqué issued by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

The other decisions include inter-state coordination that is considering the urgent need to have better cooperation, coordination, and collaboration on wildlife issues amongst all the Southern states, inter-state coordination meetings to be convened and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change will facilitate inter-state coordination meetings.

Besides this, the ministry will support capacity building of frontline staff and other frontline departments for use of early warning systems, use of modern technology and equipment and modern tracking systems; the Centre through WII will assist in preparing corridor management plans in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Among others, the Centre has enhanced ex-gratia payment from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh on human casualties. The payment of ex-gratia has to be done by the State Government immediately and in a transparent manner. A suitable mechanism and protocol have to be developed by the state in a transparent manner.