Port Blair, Aug 7: A Consultation Workshop for CAMPA-Dugong Species Recovery Programme based on Participatory Approach to be launched jointly by Wildlife Institute of India and Department of Environment and Forests, Andaman & Nicobar Islands was held at Van Sadan involving all major stakeholders. The Workshop was attended by the Director, Wildlife Institute of India, Scientists and Researchers from WII, ZSI, representatives from Coast Guard, Fisheries Department, Marine Police, NCF, ANET and SANE besides the senior officers of the department including the DFOs of both territorial and Wildlife Divisions. Mr M. S. Negi, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Principal Secretary (E&F) inaugurated the workshop and Dr. V.B. Mathur, Director, Wildlife Institute of India presided over the proceedings.
Mr M.S. Negi, in his address, narrated about the importance of launching the Dugong recovery Programme at the national level and mentioned that the purpose of holding such consultation workshop is to get the views, comments and experiences of the major stakeholders to fine tune the programme for effective implementation, assign the roles and responsibilities as per the strength and operational domains of the stakeholders.
Dr. V. B. Mathur, Director, WII explained in length about the genesis of the recovery programme, need for launching the Dugong recovery programme and its objectives. He underlined the importance of involvement of the stakeholders to achieve the stated outcome and assured that WII would provide all necessary technical and research support in recovering both Dugong and its habitat the sea grass meadows in the Islands.
Dr. K. Ravichandran, Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) mentioned that Andaman and Nicobar Islands is the first territory in the country to initiate species recovery programme on dugong and restoration of sea grass meadows under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the MoEF&CC and with research support from Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore. He informed that information related to number and extent of sea grass meadows, its use by dugong and sighting of dugong and its frequency in various locations in the recent past is available with the department.
A presentation on the Work done so far by the Department in association with NCF, Mysore since 2011 was made by Ms. Elrica D’souza, Researcher of NCF. She gave an account on the importance of Dugong conservation, the status of sea grass meadows including composition, the threats, the need for monitoring the population, conservation and management imperatives and awareness and capacity building. A total of 67 meadows have been surveyed so far and 21 dugongs have been encountered during the last 4 years.
Dr. K. Sivakumar, Senior faculty of WII made a presentation on the new project, its objectives, methodologies, role of various stakeholders, sensitization and awareness generation of local communities, involvement of communities, strategies to elicit the support, involvement and participation of communities in the recovery programme including the option of incentivizing the fishermen communities for successful conservation of Dugong in the territorial waters of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The stakeholders provided comments and suggestions on issues related to the aerial survey, boat survey and SCUBA diving/Snorkeling surveys of sea grass meadows and Dugong, implications and need for more research on the seagrass meadows, monitoring protocol, mapping of seagrass meadows, stakeholder participation, providing logistics for survey and movement of the research team, infrastructure and facilities to be put in place for the carrying out the project activities at North & Middle Andaman, South Andaman and Nicobar group of Islands, need to retrofit the dugong awareness programmes in the programmes already being implemented by various agencies like Fisheries, Coast Guard, Marine Police and Forest Department, etc. Dr. K. Ravichandran proposed the vote of thanks.
