IIT-K to help forest dept in wildlife conservation

LUCKNOW: The forest department in Uttar Pradesh is set to undertake a project to conserve wildlife and strengthen their habitat. Helping them in the endeavour will be the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K).

“Our role will be to help the forest department use tech aids like use of sensors and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to track the movement of animal and study their behavior,” said prof Abhay Karandikar, director, IIT-K.

“We have to work out a project under which how IIT-K can, through use of multiple technologies, help the forest department in animal conservation. We will do some field trial first before embarking on the project,” added Karandikar.

Principal chief conservator of forest (PCCF) Rajiv Kumar Garg said the forest department was seeking technology intervention to have a bird eye view of the entire area so as to track the movement of animals and then identify the so-called problematic areas.

“The first objective of the use of technology is to gather information about man eaters or other animals which have really come very close to human habitation and are in conflict with human settlements,” said Garg.

“The second objective is to ascertain whether animals have gone out of forest bound, and if yes, how they can be protected from criminal elements and poachers. We want the IIT-K help in identification of sensitive areas, putting them on GIS platform and then to help us in patrolling of our staff,” said

› Let’s say if fire has taken place at five places and I have a team of 24 people so what should be the judicious mix depending upon the intensity of the fire which can be assessed even from a distance with tech help RAJIV K GARG, PCCF

Garg. Also, we would want the IIT-K to collate the past data related with fire incidents in the forest and put them into analytical form so as to help us identify vulnerable spots and prevent incidences, said the PCCF.

The IIT-K will also help the department in giving information on types of resources available in neighbouring areas.

For example, if there is a pond or a fire station or population of people who can be motivated to extend support in case of need. “The inputs can help in judicious deployment of staff,” Garg said.

“Let’s say if fire has taken place at five places and I have a team of 24 people so what should be the judicious mix depending upon the intensity of the fire which can be assessed with the use of technology even from distance,” he explained.

“To cut long story short, it is like gathering information much in advance, judicious deployment of manpower and then to effectively control these problem areas like man-animal conflict, poaching of animals and fire incidences,” Garg said.

“Since animals are bit migratory within their territories also, the technology input will also help us in improving their habitats. Like traditionally we know how big animals like elephants or big cats roam around and mate. But once their size increases a group of tiger tend to move out, technology will help us to find out the areas where they move out in bigger territory,” Garg said.