SOME GLIMPSE OF "ECO-FRIENDLY MEASURES TO SAFEGUARD WILDLIFE CORRIDORS" ORGANIZED BY IVSA PAKLIHAWA IN COLLABORATION WITH TUNZA ECO GENERATION

On May 29, International Veterinary Students association (IVSA) Paklihawa, a local chapter of IVSA Nepal in collaboration with Tunza eco generation, conducted a webinar on the topic “Eco-friendly measures to safeguard Wildlife corridors”.

In this program, Mr. Pramod neupane who is a senior program officer of WWF Nepal served as the key speaker. Mr. Aashish Adhiakri (President, IVSA Nepal) and Mr. Pratik Kiju (Former Exchange officer, IVSA Nepal) were present as guests.

The webinar was divided into two sessions. In first session Mr.Pramod Neupane presented his presentation on “Eco-Friendly Measures To Safeguard Wildlife Corridors”and the second session was Q&A session where the every queries of the participants were addressed by our guest speaker.

The program was conducted by Ms. Maddhavi Pokharel. Then it was followed by the welcome speech of Ms. Nilisa Rokka Chettri(Standing Committee on Animal Welfare- Member, IVSA Paklihawa).After the welcome speech the floor was handovered to Mr. Pramod Neupane for his presentation. Starting from global context of infrastructure development, Mr. Pramod presented short but informative video clip showing merits and demerits of infrastructure development. He also pointed how road-construction spree in Asia is proving fatal to the animals. However, there was some good news as Nepal’s tiger & rhinos number were increasing and forest covered land was also abundant. Similarly, He showed us how infrastructure development could play significant role in increasing Gross National Income per capita. Moreover, he talked on pros and cons of linear intrusions as well as causes and effects of human-wildlife conflict. Showing how unnatural death of wildlife has increased in recent years, he also presented mitigating measures for controlling such deaths and how mitigating measures were proving to be effective were also shown. In addition to this, he also told us about how WWF is engaging with stakeholders such as business owners, engineers, members of parliament etc. to educate them about sustainable eco-friendly development. He also talked about impacts of Covid-19 on development process.

He ended his presentation by talking about zoonotic diseases and anti-venom and how Nepal lacks anti-venom and its importance.

The second session i.e Q&A session was moderated by Ms. Usha khatri (Standing committee on One Health- coordinator, IVSA Paklihawa) where each and every questions of the participants were detailedly explained by Mr. Pramod Neupane. The issues of Nijgadh international airport, MCC and BRI in Nepal were addressed. Similarly, there was also discussion about why sustainable eco-friendly infrastructures were lacking and if existing infrastructures could be modified to reduce human-animal conflict. Likewise, the reason behind lack of wildlife hospitals in Nepal and absence of master’s level program in wildlife were also talked about. Zoos and their role in wildlife conservation was also addressed. Mr. Pramod provided fresh perspective on different topics and proved to be a really informative resource person.

At last Mr.Pramod Neupane put his few words about this webinar and finally Ms.Suva Shree Sharma (IVSA president, Paklihawa) concluded the program along with the summarization of whole program.