Assam: Delegation from France, South Africa concludes visit to Kaziranga National Park

Guwahati: The three-day visit of dignitaries from France and South Africa to Assam, under the Indo-Pacific Park and Biodiversity Partnership, was concluded at the Kaziranga National Park & Tiger Reserve on Friday.

The Parks and Biodiversity Partnership is a trilateral collaboration between the AFD (Agence Française de Développement), ONFI (French Forest Service International) and the Assam Forest Department under which the visit took place from November 22 to 24.

The visit was formally inaugurated with a workshop on knowledge sharing on November 22 at Kaziranga.

The delegates were formally welcomed at the workshop by Sandeep Kumar, additional PCCF (Wildlife -cum-Chief Wildlife Warden) and project director, Assam Project on Forest and Biodiversity Conservation-II (APFBC-II).

MK Yadava, PCCF and HoFF, Assam, chaired the workshop and highlighted the extraordinary richness of biodiversity and forest wealth in Assam, and the state government’s various initiatives to protect and conserve the same.

The workshop attendees included representatives from ONFI, the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD, France) and South African National Parks (SAN parks), along with officers from the Rajasthan Forest Department.

Other senior officers and Divisional Forest Officers (DFOs) from various forest divisions of the Assam Forest Department also participated in the event.

The workshop included three thematic round-table discussions, where the visiting experts shared knowledge and experience of wildlife conservation and its best practices in South Africa and Rajasthan, while forest officers from Assam shared their insight and ideas from the existing wildlife conservation measures being implemented in Assam, including aspects of long-term monitoring, surveillance, and enforcement, and also on enhancing community engagement through initiatives like ecotourism.

The next part of the programme for the visiting delegates included a field visit to various parts of Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve on November 23 and 24t where they interacted with the frontline staff of the tiger reserve and visited various areas inside the park to experience its spectacular biodiversity.

They were also given demonstrations of various wildlife conservation measures adopted by the park management, including soil and moisture conservation, drone-based surveillance, camera trapping for wild animal population estimation, and land reclamation among others.

The delegates also had an interaction session with the Notundanga Eco-Development Committee and visited the Choran Ahem or the community-based Karbi Ethnic Cuisine Center as a successful example of a livelihood enhancement measure supported by the park management.

They also interacted with the women forest frontline staff serving at various anti-poaching camps.

On the final day, the delegates explored the contiguous landscape of Kaziranga, Nameri and Orang National Parks through waterways, and concluded their visit at the Bhomoraguri inspection bungalow.

Overall, the workshop and the field visit strengthened the partnership between India and France towards biodiversity conservation and the participants gained experience in various best practices such as policies promoting national parks, preventing poaching through enforcement, generating income for forest fringe communities for their livelihood enhancement for long-term park management, involvement of local institutions in decision-making, and wildlife monitoring techniques.