Graphic Image Inc.:Odisha Signs MoU With Wildlife Trust Of India To Save Elephants From Being Hit By Trains

“Please Note Graphic Image: furthest down page! Two items of related news: the first  shows yet another image of an elephant killed  by speeding train, in March  2013. In that article India’s Rail Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal stressed the need to protect the elephants from trains…the current news below is a step in the right direction!”

BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to check growing number of cases of elephants being fatally hit by trains, Odisha government today signed an MoU with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) to develop a mitigation plan. 

The New Delhi-based WTI would identify and map the critical accident prone sites and habitats of elephants and also identify factors – ecological, physical and man-made- responsible for accidental deaths of elephants.

“WTI will prepare a detailed report on mitigation plan and implement the Rs 9.9 lakh project over a period of 12 months,” said Forest and Environment minister Bijayshree Routray after signing the MoU.

Last year, the state has witnessed death of about 13 elephants due to train hits. While seven jumbos were killed due to train accidents in Keonjhar, four in Berhampur of Ganjam district and two in Dhenkanal district.

The state government had held several meetings with the Indian Railway authorities and the Ministry of Environment and Forest(MoEF) on the issue. However, there had been no such improvement in the situation.

WTI will simultaneously organise consultations/ meetings/workshops with the staff of forest department and other stake holders departments and finalise mitigation plan and jointly implement a few identified shot term mitigation plan like signage along the railway track and awareness of train drivers, the minister said.

News Link:-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora–fauna/Odisha-signs-MoU-with-Wildlife-Trust-of-India-to-save-elephants-from-train-hits/articleshow/19990978.cms?intenttarget=no

 “Please Note Graphic Image Below”

March 2013 –  Giant elephant killed by speeding train INSIDE nature reserve as it tries to cross track in remote northeast India –

This tragic photo shows the body of a tusker elephant who died today when he was hit by a speeding train in West Bengal.

The adult elephant was struck by a train in a forest at the Buxa Tiger Reserve, a few miles from Alipurduar in north east India.

A speeding passenger train, the Guwahati-bound Somporkkranti Express, hit the elephant while he was crossing the railway line. He died instantly.

The tiger reserve where the elephant was killed is inside the Buxa National Park, which runs along India’s boundary with Bhutan.

This means that the tiger reserve serves as international corridor for elephants migrating between India and Bhutan, making a it a danger spot for train drivers.

Indian forest guards now have the difficult task of getting the huge animal off the tracks so that the train line can reopen.

Sadly this fatal collision was not an isolated incident.

As recently as December last year, five elephants were killed after they were hit by a passenger train in the eastern Indian state of Orissa.

They were crossing railway tracks with their herd.

At the moment there are around 26,000 wild elephants in India.

Although elephants are worshipped by many Indians, their shrinking habitat has made them increasingly unsafe, especially when travelling cross country.

The state of Orissa in eastern India last year issued a warning, asking trains to slow down because of moving elephants herd, but they say it was ignored.

The main reasons for elephant deaths are poaching, eating crops poisoned by farmers, and being hit by trains.

Last week, India’s Rail Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal stressed the need to protect the elephants from trains, describing the animals as ‘gentle giants’  whose lives must be safeguarded.

News Link:-: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2288559/Elephant-killed-speeding-train-crossing-railway-track-India.html#ixzz2TPEjBYHM
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Do Your Cookies and Shampoo Contain “Deforestation?”

Forests are being cleared at an alarming rate to make room for new palm oil plantations. Take action!

Palm oil is used in thousands of products we use every day, from baked goods to shampoo.

Unfortunately, palm oil is produced at a tremendous expense to our planet’s forests.

These forests are being cleared at an alarming rate to make room for new palm oil plantations.

This deforestation causes about 15 percent of global warming emissions worldwide!

The good news is that we have the power to change this story.

Businesses can grow palm oil on degraded land instead of forested land and existing plantations can increase crop yields to avoid the need to further expand into forests.

In June, the U.S. government announced a new joint initiative with the Consumer Goods Forum to make ingredients like palm oil deforestation-free.

Please urge the CEOs of Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble, and Kraft Foods to ensure all the products made or sold by member companies globally are deforestation-free.

Please sign this petition to save wildlife:–http://theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/campaign.faces?siteId=3&campaign=UnionOfConcernedScientists-Deforestation&ThirdPartyClicks=ETA_020713_UnionOfConcernedScientists-Deforestation_F

The Sumatran Orangutan: Ending Palm Oil Deforestation

Published on 23 May 2012

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Related links, very interesting & petitions:-

• http://www.palmoilaction.org.au/faqs.html
  
• http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/palm-oil
• http://www.orangutans-sos.org/campaigns/palm_oil_and_biofuels
• http://www.change.org/petitions/palm-oil-industry-stop-the-torture-and-killing-of-orangutans
• http://ran.org/act/dr-oz/
• http://worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225781/Orangutans-ambushes-palm-oil-plantation-worker-knock-out.html#axzz2KE1mN4kz
• http://www.orangutan.org/how-to-help/sign-the-petition
• http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/how-to-help.php

Resa villagers kill predator – Big Cat or Big Dog?

It is not yet confirmed if the animal is a leopard or some other wild cat.

At around six pm last evening villagers of Resa, Saling gewog, put to deathwhat they believe to be the predator that in the past few weeks killed numerous poultry birds, a calf and attacked a man inside the house.

Resa village, Mongar, where the slain cat roamed

It could not be confirmed whether the animal was a leopard but farmers said that under torchlight it looked black in colour and was the size of a big stray dog.

Farmer Sherub Gyaltshen had set two traps around his coop around 5 pm yesterday after he lost eight hens on the night of October 1.

“Around 6 pm I saw the leopard caught in the trap. The noose had gone around the neck and a forelimb,” Sherub who lost more than half of his 80 hens in the past few weeks said.

“It was growling like anything and trying to escape so I quickly informed the neighbours and with the help of a sharp iron rod pierced its stomach,” another farmer said. “It died after 15 minutes.”

Farmers said that they had been living in fear especially after the September 21 incident. At around 7 pm that evening a 45-year old man was mauled by what villagers believe to be the same animal. Three days later it killed a calf.

The incident occurred in the kitchen outside the main house where Sangay was sleeping. “The animal suddenly jumped on my chest. The nearest thing to me was an axe and I hit out,” Sangay recalled. “It knocked the animal down but it tried to pounce on me again and I hit it again. I managed to injure it on the head.”

There were four people in the house including two children who shouted for help. The neighbours came by and helped chase the animal away.

Sangay went to Gyalpoizhing basic health unit in Mongar and did not have to take any stitches. The incident is the first for Resa village.

One of the farmers said that the dead animal had a deep cut on the head, which had become infested with worms confirming that it was the same animal that had attacked Sangay on September 21.

Forest officials will be visiting Resa village today to investigate.

News Link:-http://www.kuenselonline.com/2011/?p=37777

“I’m sorry to hear these people have lost livestock & a person was mauled…but I think it’s terrible that they killed the cat they way they did, it took 15 minutes to die, suffocating on it’s own blood, surely they could have made a quick clean kill as it was already trapped by it’s  neck & forelimb & already in serious pain from the head wound, it was hardly going anywhere! Anyhow, snooping around on other pages…I found this interesting….”

The general advice given to farmers is to stop grazing their cattle in areas, where the predator has made a kill.  If it is a kill by a tiger, then some sort of compensation is given, because the tiger needs to be saved, given its importance in the food chain.

But it needs to be known why livestock is being attacked. Maybe there is not much natural prey out in the jungle, which might have been poached for all kinds of things.  The predator could be old or injured, though the one in Punakha, wildlife conservation division officials believe, is a young fellow, at least going by the method of attack.

But what of damage by the leopard, the wild dog and the elephant?  Farmers are not compensated for damage and loss by these animals, nor are they allowed to hunt them down.  In some places, even monkeys and the porcupine do a lot of damage.

As an expert recently pointed out, lending an ear to what farmers and villagers might have to say on dealing with the problem could lead to long term sustainable solutions, rather than cash handouts, which take a long time coming and barely cover the loss

“Well if it was a leopard, were the farmers right to kill it the way they did? I will try to keep updated on this story & post any further news!”

http://www.kuenselonline.com/2011/?p=37403#more-37403

MP: Man kills leopard in self-defence

Dewas: A 58-year-old man killed a leopard on Sunday with an axe after the animal attacked him in the Rampura forest under Bagli range in the district.

MP: Man kills leopard in self-defence

Nathu, the man, came face to face with the big cat in the forest.Despite the mauling he received, Nathu rained blows on it with his axe, knocking the leopard out.

The animal subsequently bled to death, forest officials said here on Monday.

Nathu was initially taken to the Primary Health Centre at Bagli and later to MY Hospital at Indore.

Translated:-

News Link:–http://post.jagran.com/mp-man-kills-leopard-in-selfdefence-1341823402

 

Maha model to curb leopard-man conflict

SURAT: Forest officials in Surat are planning to emulate the successful project implemented by the Maharashtra forest department to reduce the leopard-human conflict in Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

Large number of leopards has moved out of forest areas and have made towns and villages in south Gujarat their homes, thus increasing the chances of conflict with humans.

According to Vidya Athreya, who is running the Project Waghoba in Mumbai, said that leopard density in south Gujarat and major parts of Maharashtra is higher than the dense forests of Aravalli mountain forests.

After Project Waghoba was implemented, there has been no loss of life of leopards or humans since 2007 in areas near the Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

V A Chaturvedi, chief conservator of forest (CCF), Valsad told TOI, “With the increasing population of humans and wild cats in the region, the conflict is not going to decrease. We need to take urgent steps to limit this before the problem becomes unmanageable.”

Till now, forest officials used to lay a trap and catch the leopards and then release it to the forest. Department officials confirm that in many cases the leopards that were caught and released in far away forests in the same area, returned near the urban habitat in few years’ time.

Read More:-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/surat/Maha-model-to-curb-leopard-man-conflict/articleshow/14118726.cms

Indian Man Single-Handedly Plants 1,360 Acre Forest

Jadav “Molai” Payeng started his project 30 years ago when he was still a teenager. Then, in 1979, flood waters washed a large number of snakes ashore on the local sandbar in Jorhat, some 350 km from Guwahati. When the waters receded, Payneg (who was 16 at the time) noticed the reptiles had died due to a lack of forestry.

“The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage. I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. There was nobody to help me. Nobody was interested,” said Payeng, who is now 47, to The Times of India.

Payeng chose to live on the sandbar, starting a life of isolation as he began work to create a new forest. Planting the seeds by hand, watering the plants in the morning and evening, and pruning them when required, he cultivated a huge natural reserve. After a few years, the sandbar was transformed into a bamboo thicket.

Photo by gozef

“I then decided to grow proper trees. I collected and planted them. I also transported red ants from my village, and was stung many times. Red ants change the soil’s properties . That was an experience,” Payeng recalled.

Over the years, the reserve has seen a huge variety of flora and fauna blossom on the sandbar, including endangered animals like the one-horned rhino and Royal Bengal tiger. “After 12 years, we’ve seen vultures. Migratory birds, too, have started flocking here. Deer and cattle have attracted predators,” claims Payeng .

Unfortunately, locals reportedly killed a rhino which was seen in his forest, something that Payeng clearly disapproves of.  ”Nature has made a food chain; why can’t we stick to it? Who would protect these animals if we, as superior beings, start hunting them?”

Amazingly, the Assam state forest department only learnt about Payeng’s forest  in 2008 when a herd of some 100 wild elephants strayed into it after marauding through villages nearby. It was then that assistant conservator of forests Gunin Saikia met Payeng for the first time.

“We were surprised to find such a dense forest on the sandbar. Locals, whose homes had been destroyed by the pachyderms, wanted to cut down the forest, but Payeng dared them to kill him instead. He treats the trees and animals like his own children. Seeing this, we, too, decided to pitch in,” says Saikia. “We’re amazed at Payeng. He has been at it for 30 years. Had he been in any other country, he would have been made a hero.”

Read more: Indian Man Single-Handedly Plants 1,360 Acre Forest | Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building