Noida, Uttar Pradesh, 9 November 2020:

WTI’s Wildlife Crime Control Division (WCCD) has trained frontline staff in three protected areas from two different geographies of the country in the last two months.

In the terai arc, frontline staff from both the forest and the wildlife divisions of Pilibhit Tiger Reserve were given training on forensic techniques and wildlife crime prevention strategies in a four day session held from 14 to the 17 of Oct and in Dudhwa Tiger reserve from 26 to 29 Oct.

 “Pilibhit Tiger Reserve is sensitive to wildlife crime as it is connected to the border of Uttarakhand and Nepal, this training helps our front line staff in controlling wildlife crime, as well as improve their work efficiency”, mentioned Sri H Rajamohan (IFS), Field Director, Pilibhit Tiger Reserve during the training session.

At Dudhwa, 58 front line forest staffs were sensitized on wildlife crime prevention. The participants were divided in two groups for this training by WTI experts.

Shri Manoj Sonkar (IFS), Dy Director, Dudhwa tiger reserve concluded the workshop at Dudhwa by thanking all the participants. He appreciated WTI for the training workshops and also released some awareness posters made by WTI on snares and traps and on mongoose brush illegal trade. Posters prove to be a useful tool in awareness campaigns on wildlife trade by WTI team among forest department as well as the local community.

In addition to a participation certificate to the participants from the forest dept, WTI also distributed t-shirts, water bottles, and also our ready reckoner on Wildlife Protection Act.

WTI’s WCCD team is quite active in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka, conducting regular anti snare walks, from 21-13 Sept they conducted a training on wildlife crime, crime investigation, usage of tools and mapping to be used in a crime investigation.

The three day session started with an address by Shri Balachandra (IFS) Conservator of Forests & Field Director, Bandipur who advised the participants on how to orient themselves with their work environment and the surrounding around their place of posting including the stakeholders of that region like local NGOs

The main session at Bandipur was conducted by Venkat Naidu, Assistant Manager and Project Head, WCCD, WTI whose session covered aspects of wildlife crime case registration, use of technology in such investigation and in field craft and also about WCCD and the VRP program and how WTI can be of aid to the forest department in helping conserve wildlife through our training and equipping support via WTI’s  Van Rakshak Project.

Shri. Ravi Kumar, ACF, Bandipur in his session laid out the SOP to the participants while addressing a crime scene, the importance of mapping, and the various tools needed during a crime scene investigation.

A session on the importance of biodiversity was also undertaken by Venkat Naidu followed by a brief feedback session and a talk on charter of duties to be carried out in PAs and case studies of wildlife crimes by Shri Mahesh, Dy Conservator of Forests, Nagarhole . The session ended at 6 pm in the evening.

Earlier in Sept, a 4 day training (14-16 Sept) was conducted by WCCD at Nagarhole Tiger Reserve for 30 participants (fresh batch) from the forest department at the Training Hall located inside the reserve.

The sessions of the first day included lectures on the legal aspects of wildlife crime and registering a forest offence case. The trainees were asked to prepare sample incidents reports which were then graded and discussed.

This batch received a certificate and a cap at the end of the training.

The second and the third day were essential refresher training for 55 participants from last year’s batch and had lectures followed by practical sessions on how to approach a crime scene, make a crime scene report and present it in the court. The day ended with a round of commendation for the staff who were exceptional in wildlife crime prevention in Nagarhole.

The concluding day of training in Nagerhole had a talk on wildlife forensics and ballistics by Shri Shrinivas, Sr. Sci Officer and an expert on Forensics and Ballistics from Forensics Science Laboratory, Bangalore, followed by sessions on poisons and toxicology by Shrimathi Sulochana, FSL, Bangalore. Shri Babu of the State Police Dept gave a talk on how police also takes up wildlife cases. A mock courtroom session was included with cross examinations of the accused followed by evaluations of the statements drawn up by the participants.

All the participants of the refresher course received certificates and a field kit (torch, cap, jacket, trek bag).

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