Assuming charge as the State’s Principal chief conservator of forests on Wednesday, Dr Shrikant Chandola said reviving traditional practices that kept Forest department staff more involved at the field-level, steering management practices towards the biological diversity and working on various schemes of the Chief Minister related to public involvement in forests and forestry will be among his top priorities.
Talking to The Pioneer on assuming charge in Dehradun, Chandola said, “The Forest department has fine traditions that helped keep our nose close to the ground giving us a rich field experience. In the past the department had very good documentation practices like the divisional notebook with written records of all routine and out of the routine aspects related to flora, fauna and habitat. We will focus on reviving such traditional practices in the department.
I will also focus on steering the management practices towards the important facet of biological diversity. Regarding the problem of human-wildlife conflict, for now since I have only four months to work in, I will be focusing on ensuring instant delivery as in the case of ex-gratia for the family of persons killed in an encounter with a wild animal.”
“The Chief Minister’s schemes like Hamara Pedh Hamara Dhan for boosting plantation of fruit and fodder trees are also very good initiatives for eliciting the involvement of the public in forestry and related activities. The Forest Department will make an effort to work closely with the people of the State,” he said. The PCCF also stressed that he would also be focusing on efforts to ensure a high level of staff morale while also working to knit the departmental team closer.
A gold medalist IFS officer of the 1980 batch, Chandola has worked in various capacities including that of the chief wildlife warden. He is known to be an officer active in the field while also encouraging field work and research by department staff. He was previously posted as the managing director at Uttarakhand Forest Development Corporation.