Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Saber Hossain Chowdhury has said the government has taken steps to use digital technology and services for the sustainable conservation of wildlife, legal wildlife trade and coexistence between people and wildlife. A range of digital technologies is being explored to speed up conservation.

He said civil society, technologists and conservationists must all commit to applying digital innovation for nature's sustainable adaptation and wildlife conservation.

He was speaking as chief guest on 6 March at the Forest Department at an event marking World Wildlife Day 2024, held under the slogan "Connecting People and Planet: Exploring Digital Innovation in Wildlife Conservation".

Chief Conservator of Forests Md Amir Hossain Chowdhury presided. Dr Farhina Ahmed, secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and additional secretary Iqbal Abdullah Harun attended as special guests. WildTeam chief executive Dr Mohammad Anwarul Islam and Prokriti O Jibon Foundation chairman Mukit Majumder Babu also spoke.

The minister said tiger surveys in the Sundarbans through camera trapping and research on the tigers' prey species are under way. Crime monitoring and management in the Sundarbans is now carried out with drone technology and smart patrolling. Work to conserve wildlife and stop illegal wildlife trade continues through advanced tracking systems, real-time data analytics and radio collaring.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury said the wildlife forensic lab under the Forest Department's Wildlife Crime Control Unit, which identifies species from trophies or wildlife samples and builds a DNA barcode database through genetic sequencing, is a milestone in conservation work. In 2022, for the first time in Bangladesh, elephants were radio-collared to map their range and movement routes in the Cox's Bazar forests.

The minister said a wildlife crime reporting tool has been developed for joint use by the Forest Department and law enforcement agencies to strengthen wildlife crime control. Through it, a picture of wildlife crime across the country can be obtained easily. "We must commit and work together to protect our country's wildlife," he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.