MoEF&CC in efforts to implement AI-based animal warning system for railway lines running through jungles: MoS Kirti Vardhan Singh

An Artificial intelligence (AI) based early warning system for the safety of wildlife will be implemented at all railway lines passing through forests, said Kirti Vardhan Singh, Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, on Tuesday.

“We are trying to do that across all the railway lines that run through jungles and run near jungles. This is going to be implemented not only for elephants, but for other wildlife also. We have a lot of tiger deaths happening, also [due to train hits] and other wild animals. It will be implemented in all such areas. From the Centre, we are taking it to implement it as fast as possible”, he said. The Minister, when asked whether his Ministry would replicate a successful AI-based warning system, which Tamil Nadu implemented on railway tracks to prevent elephant deaths at Madukkarai near Coimbatore.

Mr. Singh, who attended World Elephant Day celebrations in Coimbatore on Tuesday, said human - animal conflict was one of the top priorities of the Ministry.

“We are taking all precautions and employing the latest methods to lessen and mitigate the situation. We are using radio collars, satellites and artificial intelligence. But the sad fact is that since human communities live so closely with nature. So if you ask me can we make 100 % proof, no we can’t. Because we live with them... But we are taking all possible policies and plans to reduce it as much as possible,” he said on the sidelines of the celebrations.

Supriya Sahu, Secretary of Environment, Climate Change and Forests Department, stressed the need for sharing best practices from each State for the management of human – wildlife conflict and habitat protection.

The Minister released ‘Healthy Feet, Healthy Elephants: A guide to foot care in captive Asian elephants’; a special edition of Trumpet, the quarterly newsletter of the Project Elephant; Hostile Activity Watch Kernel (HAWK) app of Tamil Nadu Forest Department; ‘An Ancient Bond: The elephant Whisperers of Mudumalai’, a coffee table book by Tarsh Thekaekara; ‘The Lost Elephant and the Soul Tree’ by The Hindu journalist Akila Kannadasan.

He also presented the Gaj Gaurav Awards to Ganesh Tamang and Sumit Gogoi, mahout and attendant of Arunachal Pradesh Forest Department; Kesu Singh Walke and Sahadan Ram Lakda, assistant mahouts from Madhya Pradesh Forest Department; S. Karthikeyan and M. Murali, forest guard and anti-poaching watcher from Dharmapuri circle in Tamil Nadu; and Irshad Ali, mahout from Uttar Pradesh Forest Department.

Sushil Kumar Awasthi, Director General of Forest and Special Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; Srinivas R. Reddy, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and Head of the Forest Force, Tamil Nadu; and Rakesh Kumar Dogra, PCCF and Chief Wildlife Warden, Tamil Nadu, also spoke.