Slot for N-E in tiger body

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Guwahati, July 3: The Northeast has finally got a voice in the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), the apex body of tiger conservation in the country.

Firoz Ahmed, a wildlife biologist with Aaranyak who has carried out camera trapping in wildlife parks of Assam, has been inducted as a member of the NTCA.

Ahmed’s term is for one year and it will end in September next year. The notification for his appointment was issued in the last week of June.

“I will try to highlight the issues of the Northeast in the tiger conservation policies of the Centre,” he told The Telegraph today.

Ahmed was the team leader of the Kaziranga camera trapping exercise, which put the park on top of the world after it was found that the park had a tiger density of 32 per 100 sq km. Ahmed said though tiger reserves in the region have resources, rigorous planning was required at the management level to use the resources to their best.

He is also developing individual profile of tigers in Kaziranga, Orang, Manas and Nameri under the Tiger Informatics through Geospatial and Ecological Research (TIGER) project.

“This will assist the managers and other stakeholders with updated information on tigers of the region and create awareness among the masses,” Ahmed said.

He had recently carried out an appraisal of Dampa tiger reserve in Mizoram, one of the important landscapes in the Indo-Bangladesh border with contiguous forests in both the countries.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110704/jsp/northeast/story_14192136.jsp

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