The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has inaugurated a Centre of Excellence on Human–Wildlife Conflict at Coimbatore and launched a National Human–Wildlife Conflict Portal. The initiative is significant because human–wildlife conflict is now a recurring conservation and development issue in India, driven by habitat fragmentation, changing land-use patterns and expanding human activity.
The Centre of Excellence is intended to function as a national hub for research, innovation, policy support, capacity building and dissemination of best practices. The Ministry has presented it as a science-based and technology-enabled platform for evidence-based management of conflict between people and wildlife.
Background and earlier position
Human–wildlife conflict is not a new problem in India. What has changed is the scale and frequency of encounters as forests fragment, linear infrastructure expands and human settlements grow closer to wildlife habitats. The Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change stated that the problem has become one of India’s foremost conservation and development challenges because it affects both biodiversity and livelihoods.
The Centre of Excellence was announced earlier by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 7th Meeting of the National Board for Wildlife. The new release shows the move from announcement to institutional setup and operational planning.
What changed now
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