Senior forest department officials discussed measures for tiger protection at an inter-state coordination meeting for the western Terai arc landscape of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh organised by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) on Wednesday.

More than 70 departmental officials from the two states discussed various aspects and stressed on the need to focus on poaching and protection measures. The intelligence wing of the department was directed to be alert considering the cases of tiger poaching along the border shared by the two States. Officials stated that tiger poaching and smuggling of wildlife contraband is more prevalent in the inter-state border area as the wildlife criminals also use these areas to escape the authorities. It was also decided in the meeting that as in the case of tiger reserves, attempts will be made to provide funds to forest divisions with good tiger population outside tiger reserves in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

The NTCA will also provide technical support for wildlife protection. The authority officials also spoke of facilitating human resource for wildlife protection and infrastructure to such forest divisions. It was also decided that corridors in areas vulnerable for wildlife in divisions of the Western Circle will be identified and efforts will be made to improve these. Further, the NTCA will also facilitate resources and training aimed at decreasing human-wildlife conflict. Stress was also laid on the importance of coordination between the two neighbour states.

Western circle (Kumaon) conservator of forests, Parag Madhukar Dhakate said that apart from various forestry works, the western circle is an important wildlife area which links Corbett tiger reserve in Ramnagar to Nepal and Pilibhit tiger reserve in Uttar Pradesh. The NTCA member secretary Anup Nayak, its inspector general Amit Mallick and other senior officials of the forest departments of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh were among those who attended themeeting.