The Forest Department has ramped up its efforts to bolster the monitoring mechanism for curbing encroachments, poaching and forest fires in the large tracts of reserve forests in the district, coinciding with the beginning of summer.
The department has already initiated the process of procuring little over 20 fire-fighting blowers, 50 camera traps and a couple of GPS devices to give a technological boost to its renewed efforts to protect the forest cover and wildlife. The seizure of huge quantity of spotted deer skins and antlers besides dozens of hunting weapons during a surprise raid at Chintalapadu forest area in Mulakalapalli mandal on Tuesday has exposed the unabated slaughtering of wild animals in several forest fringe areas in Palvancha division.
This prompted the forest officials to expedite enhancement of surveillance by installing camera traps at vantage points.
The department’s action plan envisages both preventive and punitive measures to effectively tackle the multifarious threats to forests and wildlife by effectively using the satellite imagery, sources said.
Camera traps
Plans are afoot to install a minimum of five to ten camera traps at strategic locations in each of the six forest divisions and also provide additional firefighting blowers to the field staff to constantly monitor the forest cover and prevent forest fires, said S Rambabu, District Forest Officer, Bhadradri-Kothagudem.
We have already identified 47 forest fringe villages including temporary settlements inhabited by Gutti Koya migrant Adivasis as fire prone areas in the district, he said. Cultural troupes have been pressed into service to conduct awareness programmes in these villages to sensitise the local people on the devastating effects of forest fires and motivate them to become active partners in conservation of forests and wildlife.