Indore: For the first time, wildlife management training is being conducted online for all the forest officers from all over India. While coronavirus outspread has drastically changed our lives and even taken lives, we have been trying to make the best of it keeping sunny side up!
While many have lost their jobs, the idea of working from anywhere as per ease has also given a chance to talented professionals all over the world to succeed even if they live in a rural or underdeveloped area. Similarly, this new trend is emerging in government officials' training as well.
Forest officials generally learn about wildlife through first-hand experience and local knowledge workshops. The first-hand experience is still an essential part of training for a forest officer, but knowing about handling wildlife is equally essential.
With coronavirus outspread, instead of local level in-person training seminars, all India forest officials are collectively attending national level workshops online.
The first such workshop has been organised this week, where forest officers are discussing and learning from each other’s experience and experts. The workshop is organised by Central Academy for State Forest Service, Coimbatore.
The six-day workshop, starting from Monday, will conclude on September 12, 2020. Officers, who have completed 3 years of service were selected for the workshop.
From Madhya Pradesh, 4 forest officers will attend the workshop, namely:
· Suresh Barole from Indore division
· Ruhi Hakk from Bhopal division
· Siddharth Dipankar from Seoni division
· Sanjeev Kumar from Western Sagar division
Same platform: Larger exposure & learnings
“The workshop is being organised on ‘Wildlife Management’ and all the officers from across the state are learning together, bringing corresponding training to everyone,” Barole said.
He added that during the workshop, all the officers coming on one platform are learning from each other as well. “Our learning and understanding is not limited to Indore or Madhya Pradesh in such a workshop. It expands to all over India adding more knowledge and skills to our portfolio,” Barole said.
India inclusive strategy
He added that attending the workshop alongside all India forest officials is a new exposure and much-needed inclusive strategy needed for training sessions. “How we deal with wildlife in MP is different having a large population of tigers, the new evolving population of elephants and other wild animals,” Barole said.
Lessons from other states with high tiger population including Uttarakhand (442), Karnataka (524), Tamil Nadu (229), Maharashtra (190), Assam (167), Kerala (136) and Uttar Pradesh (117) helps in overcoming challenges of maintaining the population and handling human-animal conflict, he added.
