Vivek Deshpande
Nagpur, Sat Feb 25 2012

Suddenly waking up to its dubious distinction as the state with the maximum reported cases of wildlife crime, senior Maharashtra Forest officials have been summoned to devise a concerted strategy to decisively curb the menace.

The officials have had a few rounds of meetings over the past few days to discuss the problem and possible solutions. A meeting of the regional Tiger Cell, a joint Forest-Police forum that is supposed to tackle wildlife crime, was also held here recently.

“We have sought wildlife crime data from Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) and are analysing it. The attempt is to check the pending cases and the reasons why they have not gone to the logical end of conviction or why they have been lingering,” Principal Secretary (Forest) Pravin Pardeshi told The Indian Express.

Pardeshi said, “apart from taking the pending cases to their logical end and get convictions to deter the criminals involved, our endeavour will be to prevent poaching instead of later going after the poachers.”

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