Interactive session on human-elephant conflict in Goalpara district

GOALPARA: In a situation of raging human-wildlife (wild elephant) interface in Goalpara district, media personnel have an important role to play in creating a coordinated atmosphere among different stakeholders including the masses to mitigate the conflict.

In an interactive workshop on 'Biodiversity Conservation and Human Wildlife Coexistence' with media under the aegis of Goalpara District Journalist Association and Aaranyak (www.aaranyak.org), resource persons from Aaranyak flagged the responsibility entrusted to the media to highlight the human-wildlife interface with special reference to human-elephant frequent interface prevalent in Goalpara district.

A reputed elephant conservation expert from Aaranyak, Dr Bibhuti Prasad Lahkar sensitized the attending media personnel on the bigger picture of threat faced by wild elephants for various factors and plausible ways to mitigate it with coordinated action among masses, forest department, NGOs and support from media.

Jayanta Pathak, the manager of the Environment Education and Capacity Building Division (EECBD) of Aaranyak, addressing the interaction focused on the extra mile the media personnel need to traverse to keep the issues concerning biodiversity conservation and the trend and challenges of environmental journalism as on date. Pathak urged the media personnel to put up sustained efforts in covering issues related to conservation of biodiversity and protection of wildlife habitats.

Senior journalist Bijay Sankar Bora while addressing the workshop pointed out that journalists have a very limited but important role of catalyst in creating synergy among various stakeholders to facilitate sustained efforts for biodiversity conservation.

He said that since it was the masses in the grassroots that can call a huge say in achieving conservation goals, the media as a mass communicator must inform and educate various aspects, dimensions of biodiversity that sustain life.

The media personnel raised various queries on challenges and issues they face in covering aspects related to biodiversity conservation and human-wildlife conflict. They made an important suggestion of holding such sensitization workshop among villagers who have to bear the brunt of conflict with wildlife especially the alarming human-elephant interface in Goalpara district, stated a press release.

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