Wildlife Crime Prevention Training for Frontline Forest Staff in Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh, 6 August, 2015- Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) along with the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department is jointly conducting Wildlife Crime Prevention Training in 16 circles outside Protected Areas (PAs) in Madhya Pradesh. Since a lot of wildlife is present outside the PAs, the idea is to train frontline forest staff of non-protected areas on various legal aspects such as Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and its various sections like anti-poaching patrolling techniques, crime scene investigation, intelligence gathering, interrogation techniques, and preparation of Preliminary Offence Report (POR) and documentation.
Wildlife crime prevention training being conducted for frontline staff of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve
“Such trainings will help in the capacity building of our staff in non – protected areas and equip the Forest Department to fight better against wildlife crime. We look forward to many such trainings being conducted in the future,said Ravi Srivastava, PCCF & Chief Wildlife Warden, Madhya Pradesh.
The training will lay emphasis on the understanding of the various concepts, and the common mistakes often committed by frontline forest staff while preparing the POR, Crime Scene Investigation and documentation. They will be briefed about the importance of the independent witnesses during raid operations and the various procedures for collection and preservation of evidences.
This year the training programme commenced from Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve and is being held from 6th and 11th August. A batch of 100 frontline forest staff of Rewa and Shahdol forest circles will undergo the training in Fresh and Refresher Mode. The training programme in Bandhavgarh will be followed by the training programme in Panna Tiger Reserve for frontline forest staff of Chhatarpur and Sagar forest circles between 13th and 18th August.
Mentor Aniruddha Mookerjee during the training session with the frontline staff
The trainers are Dr RP Mishra, Jose Louies from WTI, Advocate Yash Kumar Soni and mentors Aniruddha Mookerjee in Bandhavgarh and Suresh Chand in Panna. “These trainings will see a participation of around 200 of frontline forest staff from Bandhavgarh and Panna Tiger Reserves. Conducting trainings like these is a good initiative to control wildlife crime and make our forests safer for wildlife, both in protected and non – protected areas,” said Dr R.P Mishra, Regional Head, Central India.
In a bid to equip and strengthen the frontline forest staff of the country, WTI has been conducting Wildlife Crime Prevention Training Programme under Van Rakshak Programme (VRP) since 2001. VRP follows a multi-pronged strategy with four thrust areas abbreviated as TEAM : Training, Equipping, Awareness and Morale Boosting, to broadly facilitate capacity building and strengthen spirits of personnel in tough field conditions.
