Bhubaneswar: The Forest department officials will now be trained on intelligence gathering like the police personnel at the Police Academy in the state in order to tackle wildlife crimes more effectively.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting here Thursday. The officers from Forest department, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), Coast Guard, Railway Protection Force, Government Railway Police and Special Task Force of Odisha Police took part in the meeting.
Hari Shankar Upadhyay, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), told media persons here that the stakeholders agreed upon the need for increasing capacity building of forest officials to deal with the rise in trafficking of endangered species. The WCCB also agreed to impart training to the forest officials.
Similarly, the WCCB advised the Forest department to put more stress on gathering intelligence inputs and directed all the stakeholders to work in tandem to rein in the rising incidents of wildlife trafficking. The miscreants involved in the trafficking of wild animals and its products have links with such elements outside India like China, Vietnam, and Middle East.
Tilottama Verma, ADG of WCCB informed the media persons that the poachers are now trafficking animals alive along with the dead animal products. She revealed that pangolin, the most endangered species in India, has been the main target of the poachers along with elephant tusks, tiger skins and others.
