Guwahati, Sept 13: Skill in providing first-aid to victims of human elephant conflict (HEC) incidents, as well as other emergencies among villagers in areas prone to HEC, is instrumental in preparing the community to face such adversity.

Prompted by the objective to train HEC prone villagers on first aid treatment, premier biodiversity conservation organisation Aaranyak (www.aaranyak.org) conducted a first-aid training to enhance community preparedness at Hastinapur village under Baksa district on September 4 in collaboration with District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA).

Around 30 villagers actively participated in the training that was coordinated by Aaranyak’s official Anjan Baruah who explained the participants about the need of first-aid treatment during accidental injury that might be due to HEC.

A team of volunteers of DDMA called “AAPDA MITRA” demonstrated various first-aid treatment methods that are applicable in different emergency situations. The AAPDA MITRA team comprised of Ritupon Kalita, resource person and other member Gopal Krishna Das, Sachin Das, Utpal Rabha, and Sanjit Daimari. Team leader Dalim Kalita coordinated the entire training programme.

Lila Karki, President of Chaulkara Revenue Wild Protection NGO initiated the training while Kishore Roy, Vice President of Chaulkara Revenue Wild Protection NGO, Netra Paudel, President of Pub Nikashi Unnayan Samity and Rudra Boral, Secretary of Pub Nikashi Unnayan Samity participated in the training. Conservationist Binoy Boro of Uttarkuchi, Allauddin Ahmed and Ishan Ali of Hedayetpur were present in the training programme too.

Aaranyak’s Rubul Tanti interacted with the participants on other important issues such as snakebite and first-aid application on snake bite.

It is worth mentioning that in the month of August, two such first aid trainings were conducted at Odalguri LP School in Baksa and Nonaikhas M.E. School in Udalguri, building capacity of around 50 community members. All of these trainings were supported by SBI Foundation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Besides, Aaranyak team also held a meeting with the Elephant Conservation Network (ECN) members of Subankhata area of Baksa district on 4th September to appreciate their effort in sharing updates on elephant movement and patrolling. One of the ECN members shared his view on how creation of the ECN has helped monitor the elephant movement, which consequently reduced accidental encounters with the Gentle Giants. The ECN helps the forest department’s elephant squad in driving back elephants from the villages. For smooth operations, the ECN members were provided with rechargeable torch lights to facilitate night patrolling.

Efforts from Aaranyak team members- Rabiya Daimary, Abhijit Saikia, Reshma Narzary, Mondeep Basumatary, Pradip Barman, Rupam Gayary, Bikash Tossa and Jaugashar Basumatary were crucial for conducting the workshops successfully.

Aaranyak has been working in high HEC affected areas in Assam and Meghalaya with a multistakeholder, and multipronged approaches to promote human elephant coexistence.