Dimapur, May 18:It takes a lot more than just throwing seminars and workshops about wildlife conservation when it comes to a region like the Intanki National Park, in Peren district. Besides infrastructural inputs, the department has been running enforcement activities in the park to ensure that the discourse on conservation don’t get lost in the academics, the Forest department implied in a press release issued through the media on Wednesday.
“The department of Forest being faced with numerous challenges in protecting Intanki national Park, created Forest Protection Force in 2009 and since its inception, the Protection Force has played a key role in the protection of the Park,” the department said.
“The first problem confronting the National Park was encroachment, which has been done away with. The daily activities of the Protection Force include carrying out regular patrolling within and along the border of Intanki National Park to check any illegal activities.” Besides, the Forest personnel camp in the forest frequently to cover the entire area of the park, the division said.
According to the Forest department, to ‘controlling’ poaching and hunting, measures have been taken by the department. The measures include maintenance of existing and construction of new “anti-poaching camps,” anti-poaching squads, provisions for mobility, patrolling, intelligence gathering, and arming personnel with firearms and control over the use of firearms around the park.
Besides, the Forest department often repairs and maintains existing infrastructure, vehicles, wireless etc. “to keep up the conservation of wildlife,” the press release explained. “With effective protection methods the number of illegal activities has declined in the park over the past few years.”
Besides enforcement activities, information platforms such as workshops and seminars about the importance of wildlife conservation are organized by the department frequently. “Facilities like Iron-free drinking water, construction of ring well, alternative livelihood opportunities like distribution of poultry to lessen the dependence on forests have also been undertaken by the department,” the department said
The department acknowledged that in spite of “heavy conservation methods,” there were some more “obvious loopholes in the process of conservation of wildlife and ecology of the park.”
For instance, illegal logging has been a serious concern at Intanki National Park. ‘To tackle this problem, the cooperation of the public, nongovernmental organizations, administration, police and other likeminded individuals is needed,’ the press release stated. The Forest department has appealed to the community to extend support and cooperation in strengthening conservation efforts and in protecting Intanki National Park.