The 86th Annual Session of National Academy of Sciences (NASI) and Symposium on Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship for Human Welfare in the Himalayan Region concluded here on Sunday. On the last day a parallel session on alternate approaches for addressing the problem of human-animal conflict in agriculture sector was held with the director general of forests, government of India, Sharad Singh Negi, principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) and chief wildlife warden Dig Vijay Singh Khati, Uttarakhand State Council of Science and Technology (UCOST) direcot general Rajendra Dobhal among others expressing their views and deliberating on varied aspects concerned. Varied alert and control measures on human-animal conflict were discussed. Encroachment by humans in areas which earlier constituted good habitat for wildlife and other factors like prey depletion due to poaching and habitat destruction were stated to be among the major factors responsible for causing and exacerbating the continuing human-animal conflict in the state. Reduction in the area of their forest habitat and unavailability of food were also sited as factors contributing to the conflict between humans and wildlife in a state known for its unique environmental wealth. Aspects of the conflict scenario including recent human injuries and deaths resulting from chance encounters or purported attack by wild animals and measures required for mitigating the human-monkey conflict along with issues pertaining to availability of food and habitat were also among the issues discussed.
Apart from the parallel session, a Children Science Meet was also organised on the occasion with school students participating in varied science related activities at the regional science centre. Among the oral and poster sessions organised, the Swarn Jayanti Puraskar (SJP) in physical sciences (oral) was presented to Chandini Sharma from Dehradun and Kishore Thapliyal from Noida. Similarly, the Springer Award was given to Meenakshi Rana from Noida and Anita Pal from Dehradun where in the poster section of physical sciences, the Swarn Jayanti Puraskar was awarded to BK Towari from Rewa and Rajesh Mandal from Dibrugarh with the Springer Award going to Ashish Nayak from Odisha and Syanshree Bora from Dibrugarh. In biological sciences (oral) the SJP was presented from Deepa Pargai and Sunil Sharma with Springer Award to Imran Khan and Manshi Bakshi. In the physical sciences (poster) section, the SJP was awarded to Shrestha Sinha and Yogendra Bahuguna with the Springer Award to ZAS Philayung and N Rawat.