Indore: ‘Ties between police, forest dept must for conserving wildlife’

Indore: The two-day long seminar on wildlife crime management was inaugurated at Police Radio Training School by IDA chairman Shankar Lalwani, here on Monday. Around 29 police officials of various ranks attended the seminar, which aims at spreading awareness on crimes committed on wildlife and various ways to fight it towards conserving wildlife.

ADG Varun Kapoor welcomed the chief guest and guest lecturers– wildlife and law enforcement expert from Gujarat forest department, Sunny Shah and chief of wildlife crime control division of Wildlife Trust of India, Jose Louis. The first day of the seminar began with ADG Kapoor addressing the gathering on digital intelligence collection. Shah in his address gave detailed analysis of tiger hunting communities of north and
central India, while Jose Louis informed about identification of various body parts of wild animals and illegal hunting techniques.

“Combination of old methods of crime research and new technology is very effective in bringing change in wildlife crime management,” Sunny
Shah said. Loius argued that “Proper coordination between police and forest department is must for successful wildlife conservation, as it will help monitor and prevent wildlife crimes efficiently.” Kapoor informed that on the second day of the seminar Louis will further highlight the issue of online wildlife trade and officer in charge of STF (Bhopal), Ritesh Sarothiya will deliberate on the Wildlife Protection Act in details and explain modus operandi of investigation of wildlife offences.

Coordinator of WWF Soman Dey will speak on challenges of illegal wildlife trade with case studies. The programme was conducted by SI Malay Mahant and vote of thanks was proposed by DSP Subhash Singh.