BHUBANESWAR: Complying with the order of Orissa High Court, the State government has formed a Joint Task Force (JTF) for protection of wildlife - including elephants - effectively. The JTF will be headed by the Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife). It will comprise deputy conservators of forest, two assistant conservators of forest and three forest rangers from along with one SP/additional SP-ranked officer, two police inspectors and three sub-inspectors from Odisha police. The police officers will be on deputation.
This apart the JTF will have Prof Raman Sukumar of Asian Nature Conservation foundation as it co-opted member as wildlife expert, a notification of Forest, Environment and Climate Change (FE&CC) department said. Retired IFS officer Jitasatru Mohanty, now part of Save Elephant Foundation Trust and national coordinator of Elephant Cell in Project Elephant of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) Prajna Panda will also be co-opted members and wildlife experts in the task force.
This apart, the JTF will also have honorary wildlife wardens (HWWs) Aditya Chandra Panda (angul) and Lalit Mohan Sahu (Deogarh) as its members. More members could also be co-opted if required, the notification stated in the backdrop of HC order for making the JTF broad-based. As per the terms of reference, JTF’s primary responsibility will be to prevent, investigate and prosecute different cases of unnatural deaths of elephants as well as cases relating to poaching of tigers and leopards and illegal trade of pangolins.
It will identify preventive and remedial measures and prepare a comprehensive action plan for checking wildlife crimes including cases of poaching and man-animal conflicts and advise State authorities on wildlife-related issues. The task force will monitor the trials of wildlife cases in courts of law. The JTF has also given the responsibility of providing hand-holding support to the field officials on prevention, control and investigation of wildlife-related offences.
Last month, a division bench comprising Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Chittaranjan Dash had asked the State government to form the JTF and ensure it is broad-based to deal effectively with wildlife crimes.