Guwahati, May 7: Community members from Subankhata and Bandwguri in Baksa district, Assam who have to cope with human elephant conflict (HEC) situation as part of their life, have been sensitised on utilising innovative HaatiApp devised by biodiversity conservation organisation Aaranyak, to monitor movement of wild elephants in their vicinity.
Aaranyak, with support from the SBI foundation, conducted two community outreach events for the purpose at Uttar Subankhata and Bandwguri in Baksa district of Assam recently.
During the sessions, Aaranyak introduced and demonstrated the HaatiApp, a mobile application specially designed to assist local communities in monitoring and reporting elephant movements and incidents of conflict.
The app enables users to easily record sightings of elephants, report conflict situations, and receive alerts about elephant presence in their surroundings. By using this tool, communities can stay better informed and take early precautions to avoid encounters with elephants thereby making the coexistence safer and more manageable.
In addition to the HaatiApp demonstration, Aaranyak’s team presented HEC mitigation sets, explaining how different tools and techniques can be used to prevent or reduce conflicts with elephants.
These demonstrations helped participants understand practical ways to protect their crops, property, and lives while also ensuring the safety of the elephants.
Fifty-one community members from both the areas participated in the sessions, showing great interest in learning about the importance of coexistence and how technology and traditional knowledge can work together to reduce conflicts.
These programmes were part of Aaranyak’s continued efforts to promote human-elephant coexistence and reduce human-elephant conflict (HEC) in areas prone to such issues.
Aaranyak’s experienced team members Abhijit Saikia, Mondeep Basumatari, Jiban Chetry, and Pradip Barman facilitated this informative and interactive sessions.