Odisha Issues Guidelines on Elephant Monitoring Mechanism

Bhubaneswar: In view of increasing number of incidents of human-elephant conflicts in the State, the Odisha Government has issued guidelines for effective elephant monitoring mechanism.

The Forest Department has directed all the DFOs to follow the guidelines strictly to combat man-elephant conflict.

Here are the detailed guidelines:

1. It is the duty of every beat Forest Guard and section Forester to convey to Range Officer the presence/absence of elephants in their respective jurisdiction every day in the afternoon. They have to collect such information through various sources like local sources, trackers and Gajabandhu. They are also required to keep track of the movements of elephants in their area in general and movements of lone tuskers in particular. They should alert the villagers of the area in advance. In case of need, they are required to take up anti depredation activities by mobilizing local people and resources available with them. Concerned Section Forester shall be responsible for passing on the information about elephants to his neighbouring sections.

2. Every day in the afternoon. Range Officer shall assess the presence of elephants in his range jurisdiction based on available information. For this purpose, in addition to information furnished by beat FGs and Section Foresters of his range, data of previous night movements obtained through monitoring app shall be relied upon. This can be further confirmed by making calls to VSS President/Active VSS Members and other prominent persons of the area.

3. Based on above information the squads and staff shall be allotted monitoring / protection duties in different areas of the Range. For movement of each squad a movement register shall be maintained (this does not mean all the squads shall be stationed at Range Office. They are to be stationed at different locations as per field requirement but the movement shall be in a guided and coordinated way). Staff and Squad members shall perform the usual duties of tracking, monitoring, driving away etc. Range Officer shall co-ordinate with Division Control Room and neighbouring Ranges for exchange of information and attend personally at important points.

4. During their movement, staff and squad members shall take photos of elephants or their fresh signs or of other important points in their movement area (like water sources, salt lick etc. where elephants usually come) through the mobile app. In case, there is difficulty in usage of app in some areas due to technical reasons then GPS location can be communicated either over phone or through wireless network immediately and photos may be taken on apps like NoteCam etc. which give location details of the photos and these photos shall be submitted to Range Officer as early as possible, before morning (i.e. before end of duty). Photos without location details should not be entertained at any cost. Non usage of App or non-submission of geo-tagged photos (a mentioned above) during elephant monitoring duty shall he considered as a serious lapse and will he dealt accordingly.

5. Range will be the basic unit for monitoring of elephant movements and Range Officer concerned is responsible for monitoring the movement of elephants in his/her range.
6. For each Range Officer Mobile telephone number shall be officially allotted and will remain with the in charge of the range. This number shall be widely publicized in the range area for passing on information by the public. This number for each range shall also be reflected in department websites (both territorial and wildlife).