Forest Minister A.K. Saseendran will meet Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav in New Delhi on November 21 to apprise him of various issues in Kerala including the longpending demand to declare wild pigs as vermin.
He will also seek the Centre’s financial support to implement the action plan prepared by the Forest Department to tackle the mounting human-animal conflict in the State. The action plan has been formulated on the basis of feedback collected from people’s representatives and the general public.
An official press note quoting Mr.Saseendran said the State Government had taken steps to tackle the wild pig menace by allowing persons with licensed firearms to kill the animals. He, however, said repeated appeals to the Centre to declare wild pigs as vermin had not yielded any result.
Wild pigs are included in Schedule 3 of the Wildlife Protection Act, making their killing a punishable offence. By declaring them as vermin and including them in Schedule 5, farmers and other persons can kill the animals posing a menace to crops and lives.
Mr.Saseendran said the Forest Department would join hands with the Revenue Department to demarcate forest boundaries and digitize the records. Explaining that this would help to minimise the disputes over forest land, the Minister said he would seek assistance from the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) to implement the project.
