Capacity Building with the Forest Department

Tiger Watch Ranthambhore has long assisted in enhancing and augmenting the Ranthambhore Forest Department’s capacity to tackle a myriad of challenges. Whether providing innovative solutions to structural issues, or procuring specialized equipment or providing training to tackle very specific problems, Tiger Watch is ideally placed to help the Forest Department overcome such challenges.

1.Designing and procuring rescue equipment for the Forest Department

Human Wildlife Conflict is difficult to avoid and manage where densities of both humans and wildlife are high. When human lives and livelihoods are threatened, quick but practical solutions are necessary to alleviate conflict. After consultations with the Forest Department, Tiger Watch designed specialized rescue equipment such as cages, Y sticks, snake graspers, snake tongs, safe snake bags, various nets, ropes, crocodile grasper, monitor lizard rescue trap, etc.   

Over the years, Tiger Watch has also provided the Forest Department with uniforms and high quality hand held torches. In addition to all of the above, Tiger Watch conducts workshops for Forest Department Employees and educates them on the legal aspects of wildlife conservation. Such training has certainly improved their understanding of specific issues and made them far more capable of dealing with them.

2. Forest Guard Uniforms

A total of 125 uniforms and footwear was distributed to the staff of the forest department as a token of appreciation for all the hard work they have done  and to encourage them to carry on their valiant and many times unsung efforts to save our Tigers. Ms Shefali Bajaj and Ms Sharmin Pathanky very kindly campaigned and raised the money for Tiger Watch to help purchase the uniforms. They raised INR 4.5 lac for this Tiger Watch project. The project was envisaged by Fateh Singhji’s dear friend then Chief Secretary of Rajasthan, Mr. Salauddin Ahmed.

3. Wildlife Legal Procedures Workshop

From time to time the Tiger Watch has supported the forest department by bringing experts from various fields to work out fresh training models and refresh existing systems to educate forest staff to protect the wildlife of the region.

One such step was the Wildlife Legal Procedure Workshop held on 21st December 2011 at Ranthambhore. The objective of the workshop was to get members from the legal fraternity onto a single platform, which included the public prosecutor who defended for the forest department, the criminal advocate who favoured the lawbreakers and the judge besides other dignitaries.

The target audiences for this workshop were the forest officials (forest guards, foresters and rangers) who might be working hard to protect the forest but have not been sensitized enough on all the nitty-gritties of managing the legal aspects once the criminal is arrested. Sometimes these people working for the forest become hapless victims of the lawbreakers accusing them of unnecessary arrests. The workshop was carefully designed keeping in mind all the varied issues a forest official should look into before, in course of and after an arrest. Adv. Ms. Padmini Rathore designed the course material for sharing amongst the participants while Fateh public School provided the venue. A total of 44 forest guards, foresters and range officers participated in the workshop