MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) minister for forests and wildlife Chaudhry Mohammad Akmal Sargala has vowed to take “concrete steps” to conserve wildlife in the state, warning strict action against those endangering wildlife in any shape or form.

“Poachers do not deserve any mercy because their felonious act creates imbalance in the environment and we will tackle them strictly. It should be a matter of shame for the humans that even the harmless species of animals, including birds, are not safe,” he said while talking to a group of journalists on Saturday – a day after the ‘world wildlife day’ was observed across the globe.

AJK’s secretary for environment, wildlife and fisheries Khawaja Mohammad Naeem and wildlife and fisheries department director Naeem Iftikhar Dar were also present on the occasion.

Referring to the human-wildlife conflict, the AJK minister regretted that some wild animals, mainly carnivores, would get killed or critically injured by humans because of the lack of awareness in this regard.

He, however, attributed the frequency of human-wildlife conflict to the installation of a barbed fence by the Indian authorities at the Line of Control (LoC), which he said had badly affected the natural habitat of terrestrial animals by restricting their free movement across the unmarked divide.

“Earlier wild animals would roam over either side of the divide. But the fence considerably shrank their habitat particularly on our side due to which sometimes they enter human habitations in search of food and water and are killed or critically injured,” he said.

Listing the benefits of conservation of wildlife and forests, the minister asked people to consider wildlife as their friends and not foes and hence do away with the tendency of eliminating them either for fun or self-defence.

He said though the resource-constrained wildlife and fisheries department would “sweat blood” to protect wildlife, it could not accomplish this gigantic task alone unless every citizen of the state played his active and effective role in this regard.

“Every one of us has to become the conservator of our wildlife and forests because we, the humans, also heavily depend on both for our survival, well-being and prosperity,” Mr Sargala said.

He said he had directed the officials of the wildlife and fisheries department to engage as many people as possible in areas having terrestrial and aquatic wildlife in plenty in their departmental efforts to arrest illegal hunting and poaching.

“I have told them to devise and run awareness campaigns to educate people on the importance of wildlife in general and how to handle a wild animal when it enters human habitation in particular,” he said.

The AJK minister expressed the hope that international wildlife conservation organisations would resume extending considerable cooperation to the AJK government department for protection of wild species and their habitats.

“Alone, we cannot cope with this uphill task… We need global support.”

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2023