Bareilly, Jul 19 (PTI) The ‘Bagh Mitras’ of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve are now set to inform residents of villages bordering the forest about government welfare schemes and help them access these programmes, an official said on Sunday.
Bagh Mitras or “friends of tigers” are local villagers from areas adjacent to the reserve who receive specialised training from the forest department and play an important role in mitigating the human-wildlife conflict.
Bareilly Chief Conservator of Forests P P Singh said the tiger reserve’s unique ‘Bagh Mitra model’ is being appreciated across the country and adopted by other states. As part of this initiative, the local Bagh Mitras are visiting various tiger reserves to train local communities there.
Currently, there are 124 Bagh Mitras associated with the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, comprising 120 men and four women. Their primary duties include reporting tiger movements, minimising man-animal conflict, raising awareness among villagers, and assisting the forest department in wildlife conservation.
According to Manish Singh, the divisional forest officer (DFO) of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has devised a comprehensive action plan to enhance this new social and administrative role of the Bagh Mitras. Under this plan, they will receive specialised training through the renowned voluntary organisation ‘Haqdarshak’.
As a pilot project, this initiative is being launched with Bagh Mitras from Pilibhit (Uttar Pradesh) and Nainital (Uttarakhand).
A two-day special training camp is scheduled for July 24 and 25 at Ramnagar in the Jim Corbett National Park. A 15-member team of Bagh Mitras from Pilibhit will travel to Ramnagar for this training, where they will learn the intricacies of rural development and the implementation of government schemes, according to the officer. The DFO said that following the training, this welfare initiative will be implemented in the first phase across the sensitive border villages of the Mala and Mahof ranges within the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve.
After its successful outcome, the initiative will be expanded to other tiger conservation ranges — Haripur, Barhi and Diyoriya. This will not only ensure the protection of forests and wildlife but also facilitate the reach of mainstream development to remote villagers in the Terai region, he said. PTI COR NAV PRK
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