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Prevention of Poaching of Wild Animals with Community
Participation Program
Poaching of small fauna have been a cause of
concern for Wild Orissa
since 1997 and the Prevention of Poaching of Wild Animals with
Community Participation Program was launched that year. Aware
that this nemesis was like a festering wound in most natural areas
in the country it was realized that without ensuring the
involvement of local inhabitants as well as hunters this could not
continue. Direct intervention to combat the menace of poaching and
hunting with the participation of the local communities has now
become a trademark expertise of Wild Orissa.
It
was early in Wild Orissa’s history, 1999, that success was enacted
at village Chandeswar located in Khurda district of Orissa when 20
hunters turned at a public function organized by Wild Orissa to
surrender their hunting nets, traditionally for generations used
for trapping rare wild animals like the Chevrotain or the Indian
Mouse Deer, Wild Boars, Muntjacs or Barking Deer, etc, from the
nearby forests. This was possible after months of convincing by
Wild Orissa. The success was repeated when in the year 2001
another 14 hunters surrendered their poaching nets at a function
organized by Wild Orissa at Chandeswar. Further 14 traps made of
steel, meant for wild boars, barking deer and hares were also
surrendered. Wild Orissa’s success in its anti-poaching program
was again showcased in Chandaka Wildlife sanctuary in the year
2001 when due to its efforts 50 hunters from the village of
Pithakhia, Andharua, came forward and took an oath in the presence
of a Member of Parliament and the local Divisional Forest Officer,
to forsake the path of killing wild animals. Since then this
exercise has been undertaken in many other villages of Orissa,
like Sundarpur, Ghodahada, Remala, etc.
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