Guwahati, Feb 14: Personnel from the elite border guarding force Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) deployed along the India-Bhutan border including the stretch of the frontier in Baksa district of Assam often come across herds of wild elephants as their area of operation overlaps with elephant-bearing areas in the district.
This necessitates that the SSB personnel are made well aware of the elephant conservation efforts and on-going initiatives for mitigation of human-elephant conflict (HEC).
With this objective in focus, region’s premier biodiversity conservation organisation Aaranyak (www.aaranyak.org), with support from SBI Foundation organized a comprehensive training programme for the 64th Battalion of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) at Daragaon, Baksa district on February 7 last.
Twenty-six personnel from the Armed Border Force attended the session that was aimed at sensitising them on elephant conservation and human-elephant conflict mitigation.
During the session, Aaranyak’s resource persons Abhijit Boruah and Rabiya Daimari made presentations that highlighted various facets of elephants including their ecology, behaviour and threats.
The session also explored the underlying causes of human-elephant conflicts, such as habitat loss and degradation, and also focused on different strategies and highlighted how we all can join hands in mitigating HEC and facilitating coexistence between humans and wild elephants in the same landscape.
Aaranyak’s Abhijit Boruah, Rabiya Daimari, Abhijit Saikia and Jiban Chetry facilitated the training in tune with Aaranyak’s efforts to raise awareness and apprise how a multi-stakeholder engagement is crucial for promoting human-elephant coexistence.