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Forest guards get GPS-enabled digital units to curb illegal activities

The project will ensure that senior officials get to monitor wildlife-related offences on a real-time basis and also direct resources and efforts, in case of a spike in such cases in a particular area.

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File photo of forest guards with the skin of a poached leopard. The state has 7,000 forest guards
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For better monitoring of offences such as poaching and tree felling, tracking forest fires, and plantation and protection of Maharashtra's green cover, the state government has begun distributing GPS-enabled personal digital assistants (PDAs) to forest guards.

The project will ensure that senior officials get to monitor wildlife-related offences on a real-time basis and also direct resources and efforts, in case of a spike in such cases in a particular area.

"The basic idea is that the forest guards should move around. We will get to know about the registration of offences on a real-time basis. The software in these PDAs will enable forest guards to lodge their complaints to us.

Once an offence is registered, we can track its progress," noted a senior forest department official involved with the exercise.

Once a guard detects any offence, such as tree-felling or poaching, on his beat, he will geo-tag the location on the PDA – which is like a mobile phone – click a photo and upload it on the central server, after which it will be tracked by those in the chain of command. This is faster than the manual system, wherein paperwork could take days to reach senior officials.

He added that they planned to cover all 7,000 forest guards, in addition to range forest officers (RFOs) and foresters at a later stage. The officer said they were also trying to link digitised maps on GIS to satellite maps to know real-time changes in forest areas. A similar PDA-based system was also being used by the Madhya Pradesh forest department.

"This is useful to record illegal felling and encroachments," noted a forest service officer, posted in one of the thickly forested districts in Maharashtra, adding that it also helped them ensure that the beat guards kept their boots on the ground.

"If there are frequent offences in a particular area, we can direct protection activities there. Moreover, the presence of a forest guard on the beat and his foot patrolling is important. His movement in the area also ensures protection. We can monitor the presence of the guards on their beats," the official added.

"The case and subsequent developments, such as lodging of an FIR, arrests and the progress of the case till it reaches the court, can be tracked and monitored on the system," said a forest department official. Moreover, the PDAs can be used to track the status and measure the extent of plantations, something that could not be done ocularly, and also record crop losses due to wild animals.

Forest uses second largest portion of land after agriculture in Maharashtra. According to the India State of Forest Report, 2015, (ISFR) published by the Forest Survey of India (FSI), India's recorded forest areas (RFAs) cover 23.26% of the 32,87,263sqkm geographical area. The report said Maharashtra's RFAs constitute 20.01% of the total geographical area (61,579 sq km of 3,07,713 sq km). The National Forest Policy, 1988, has set a target of 33%.

Maharashtra has six national parks, 47 wildlife sanctuaries and four conservation reserves with a tiger population of around 190 in 2014, up from 169 in 2010. The state government also plans to develop Tadoba- Andhari, Mumbai's Sanjay Gandhi National Park, and Nagpur's Gorewada Zoo on lines of international forest tourism destinations, such as Kenya's Masai Mara.

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