Action plan aims to minimise bear-human conflicts


Action plan aims to minimise bear-human conflicts
NEW DELHI: The National Bear Conservation and Welfare Action Plan for India focuses on ensuring stable status for all bear species and minimising bear-human conflicts through conservation efforts.

Launched last week by minister of environment and forests Jayanthi Natarajan, the plan aims to build a "green lawyer network" and to ban bear hunting in northeastern states using local communities from 2013 onwards. A separate section on the management of bear-human conflicts aims to create wildlife rapid action and rescue teams at district levels between 2013 and 2016, and even a "non-lapsable corpus fund" to meet plastic surgery costs for victims of bear attacks.

The national action plan had been in the making for over the last one year, and compiles 26 state action plans under it. "All the conservation requirements will be covered in the state action plans. Time-bound activities will be chalked out later. Currently the national action plan has to be synchronized with state action or local management plans," says Dr S K Khanduri, Khanduri Inspector General of Forests (Wildlife), MoEF.

Vivek Menon of the Wildlife Trust of India, one of the NGOs that contributed to the plan, says that costing of plans have to be forwarded by the states to the center. "What is listed under the national action plan is very broad. States will develop action plans with details of costs," he says.

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