Centre of Excellence on Human-Wildlife Conflict Inaugurated at WII-SACON

Key facts

• A national-level Centre of Excellence (CoE) on human-wildlife conflict has been established at the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) in Coimbatore, a premier research institute of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII).
• The CoE was inaugurated by the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav.
• The CoE is designed to serve as a national hub for research, innovation, policy support, capacity building, and dissemination of best practices for scientific and evidence-based management of human-wildlife conflict.
• The CoE will focus on strategies to form policies for managing conflicts involving leopards, elephants, and tigers outside tiger reserves.
• The National Human-Wildlife Conflict Portal, a digital platform for data management, knowledge sharing, and decision support for conflict mitigation, was launched.
• A publication titled 'Current Status of Human–Wildlife Conflict in India: An Overview' was released.