Wildlife Institute of India’s premier research institute Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (Sacon), Coimbatore, got a shot in the arm with the establishment of a national-level Centre of Excellence (CoE) on human - wildlife conflict.

The CoE is designed to serve as a national hub for research, innovation, policy support, capacity building and dissemination of best practices to strengthen scientific and evidence-based management of human - wildlife conflict.

Inaugurating the CoE from Coimbatore on Friday, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav said that human - wildlife conflict has emerged as one of India’s foremost conservation and development challenges due to increasing interactions between people and wildlife resulting from habitat fragmentation, changing land-use patterns, and expanding human activities.

He wanted the CoE to focus on a strategy to form a policy to manage conflicts of tigers outside tiger reserves, and leopards and elephants with humans. Awareness on human - wildlife conflict should be raised in a mission mode in urban as well as rural areas, on how to deal with human-wildlife encounters, he said.

“Our approach should be solution-oriented, instead of being problem-oriented, utilising modern technological advances,” he said.

Mr. Yadav urged forest departments across the country to take proactive preventive measures in managing the conflicts and damage caused to human establishments and crops.

“Coexistence and harmony, instead of conflict, should be the mantra of ecological sustainability,” said Mr. Yadav, who also launched the National Human - Wildlife Conflict Portal, a digital platform designed to facilitate data management, knowledge sharing and decision support for conflict mitigation across the country. ‘Current Status of Human–Wildlife Conflict in India: An Overview’ was also released.