Wild boar management has been a vexed issue in Kerala for decades. The government move to empower Panchayati Raj institutions with the authority to cull animals that wander into human-inhabited areas does not seem to offer a long-lasting solution to the conundrum.
The assumed growth in population of the prolific breeders and the increasing human activity along forest fringes have contributed to an upward trend in conflicts in recent years. A significant rise in instances of crop damage and property loss due to wild boar menace has created unrest among local communities that predominantly rely on agriculture for sustenance. The number of such cases has risen from 1,250 during 2019-20 to 1,898 a year later, according to official statistics.
While the decision to vest local bodies with the power to annihilate wild boars may have brought cheer to large sections, some believe the decision could do more harm than good.
“The wild boar population significantly fell from 60,940 in 2002 to 48,034 during the next wildlife census held in 2011. While no worthwhile attempt has been made to enumerate the population in recent times, the decision to relax the restrictions on culling wild boars could pave the way for their extinction. Such a scenario could result in big cats including tigers wandering into human inhabited areas in search of food,” M.N. Jayachandran, former member of the Kerala State Animal Welfare Board, says.
14-point guideline
He accuses the State government of flouting a 14-point management guideline issued by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change last year to deal with human-wildlife conflicts. The government ought to exhaust such provisions including ensuring people’s participation in managing conflicts and adopting early warning systems before going for “extreme measures”.
Rubbishing such concerns, the government has maintained that it adhered to the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 while delegating the powers vested with the Chief Wildlife Warden to local body leaders who have been appointed honorary wildlife wardens. A senior forest officer cited a similar decision that had been taken by the Telangana government last year to cull wild pigs in view of the widespread destruction caused to standing crops.
While the decision to let the local bodies decide on shooting down wild boars is feared by various quarters to result in their indiscriminate killing, concerns are also rife that the permission could be misused with poachers entering unguarded forests to hunt these animals.
Various safeguards
According to sources, the department had initially mulled various safeguards such as retaining the authority over culling wild boars within a specific radius from protected areas. However, the government finally chose to leave it to the panchayats bordering forests to take a call.
Nonetheless, officials claim various alternative options are being explored to deal with the wild pig menace. The possibility of using drop-door cages to capture and release them in forests is under consideration.
Studies have also recommended the need to review cropping patterns in the fringe areas to minimise wildlife incursions. Tuber crops that are known to attract wild pigs should ideally be replaced with rubber, coconut or mango ginger (Curcuma amada) that is known to repel them, an official said.
J. Devika, social critic and Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, feels the decision to empower local bodies is a step in the right direction. She, however, adds there is further scope for participatory management of the unfolding crisis.
An advocacy note that she had prepared along with journalist Chithira Vijayakumar for CDS’s Research Unit on Local Self-Government after interviewing 21 leaders of forest-fringe local bodies a few months ago recommended transferring key decision-making power on issues concerning deterrent measures such as solar fences, regular maintenance of fences, and compensation disbursal to the panchayats.
Financial allocation
Forest-fringe and forested panchayats also deserved a much larger financial allocation from the State government on the basis of data on human-wildlife conflict and agricultural patterns in order to undertake various mitigation activities. Primary responder teams must be formed in such panchayats to work in tandem with the rapid response teams of the Forest department, they proposed.
Local bodies must also be permitted to rope in the services of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme workers to augment the department’s ecological restoration efforts to ensure adequate availability of food for wildlife species in the buffer zones.
Raising caution on the damaging impact of culling wildlife, the researchers also put forth the suggestion of permitting limited hunting of wild boars by tribal communities. The Centre must be urged to downgrade the species from Schedule 3 to Schedule 5 of the WildLife (Protection) Act, 1972 for that purpose. Indigenous communities must also be permitted to consume its meat. This would solve the existing concerns surrounding burying the carcass of culled boars. Hunting rights should, however, be closely monitored and suspended whenever a sharp fall was recorded in the wildlife population, the document stated.
