Spatio –Temporal Assessment and Management of Human- Wildlife Conflicts in the part of Northern Western Ghats

Western Ghat is rich in biodiversity, but presently recognised ‘Biodiversity Hotpot’ due to irreversible degradation caused by excessive anthropogenic interfere such as dams construction, roads, forest fires,... [ view full abstract ]

Western Ghat is rich in biodiversity, but presently recognised ‘Biodiversity Hotpot’ due to irreversible degradation caused by excessive anthropogenic interfere such as dams construction, roads, forest fires, deforestation, changing cropping pattern etc. These activities have affected in the form of habitat loss, fragmentation and higher disturbance. It resulted as losing prey base and food base available in the forest. This escalated Human-wildlife conflict in the region. Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC) is a common phenomenon in the human inhabitations that are close to forests and wilderness areas. Hence, the study area is selected for the research work is Junner forest division, located in northern part of the Western Ghat in Pune district, India. It reported HWC in the form of crop depredation, livestock kills by carnivores, damage to property, and chance encounters resulting in death or injury to people and to wildlife as well. It reduces support for conservation of the wildlife among the affected population and the forest department is often at the receiving end of people’s anger. Therefore, the objectives of the paper are to assess spatio-temporal dimension of Human-wildlife conflicts in the study region; to assess the conservation and management implications of human - wildlife conflict on wildlife and suggest management strategy for prevention and conservation of wildlife animal species. To achieve the objectives, methodologies involves NDVI and landuse – land cover studies to understand spatio–temporal change in extent and form of the natural resources with help of Geo-informatics technique. The quantitative techniques used for data received from the department of forest. The results are validated through field assessment such as interview, discussion and questionnaire methods. It also validated with help of secondary resources like previous research work, reports and articles on the issues obtained from previous research work done on similar topic as well as from same area.

The analysis revealed that the incidences of illegal grazing, forest fire, illegal cutting and other factors have been increased and its effect is over the period increasing into the habitat loss. The GPS location of the human-wildlife conflict marked almost 100-150 km away from the original habitat. The animals responsible for the conflicts are types of deer, fox, hyena, leopard, monkey, peacock, wildcat etc. The crop depredation and livestock depredation has been increased during last one decade. The wildlife attacks on human are fluctuating but very less compare to the human attacks on wildlife as it temporally increasing because of fear psyche of people about attack. The concerned authorities have executed different management strategies to deal issues related to the human-wildlife conflict, which are found less constructive. It includes translocation, shooting, random trapping, compensation to affected people is meager and delay in its receiving. The work recommended that the problem should be considered on the bases of natural regions. The management involves regular monitoring of the conflict, habitat enrichment, no further fragmentation, cooperative community guarding, people awareness regarding prevention and mitigation of the problem, scientifically managed conservation centers near forest area and efficient and reasonable compensation.