‘Opportunistic politics hurting Kerala more than wild animals’

Thiruvananthapuram, PTI: The Congress-led UDF, the BJP, and certain organisations are competing to win the confidence of people in Kerala's high-range areas, but their opportunistic politics is causing more harm than wild animals straying into human habitats, Kerala Forest Minister A K Saseendran has said. In an interview to PTI, Saseendran said the issue of human-animal conflict has been brought into the main focus of the government by the latest state budget, and a slew of programmes has been designed to find a permanent solution to the problem.

"The solution cannot be achieved in a day or two. But we must wait a little longer to address this issue, and for the first time, the state budget has recognised it as a major public concern and allocated funds for its mitigation," Saseendran said. He said that the "opportunistic political games" played by the opposition parties are adversely affecting the prospects of the districts. "If they propagate the idea that it is unsafe to go out in Wayanad, a district that thrives on tourism, the people of Wayanad will suffer badly. This is not an issue for political gains; what we need is a cooperative effort to resolve it," the minister said.

His remarks come amid widespread protest in the forest border areas in Kerala's hill district against the government's alleged inaction over growing incidents of human-wildlife conflict. Reiterating his earlier statement made in the Assembly, Saseendran said deaths from wild animal attacks have decreased from 2011 to the present. However, he added that cases of injuries from wild animal attacks have increased.

"It shows that the forest department, working under several constraints and legal limitations, has utilised all the resources it has, and made efforts to achieve these results." Out of the 914 deaths reported in recent times, 514 were due to snake bite, and there were also fatalities caused by hornet attacks, which cannot ideally be classified as wild animal attacks.