MYSURU: One of the challenges faced by the forest department in the forest buffer zones and villages located inside the forests is to provide sustainable livelihood to the locals, especially the tribal communities. In the remote Ponachchi and surrounding villages near famous MM Hills temple, the forest department has now started training for over 100 women under the Bamboo Mission.
Master trainer from the Tripura are training these women in various bamboo products. The idea is helping the women to find job and livelihood locally without migrating to any places. The department is also now popularising the bamboo cultivation among the local farmers which can fetch Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh per acre income annually per acre of land.
The forest department has been scouting villages in Kollagal for the past month, sometimes with personnel on the ground, and by scanning the forest from the air with drones
MYSURU: For the past month, residents of villages on the edge of the Male Mahadeshwara Wildlife Sanctuary have been living in dread of a leopard that has been preying on their livestock. In addition to tracking the big cat on the ground, foresters have deployed drones to spot the leopard. However, the leopard continues to evade capture.
The leopard was recently spotted near the Sathegala Handpost and in the vicinity of Yadakuriya in Kollegal. Foresters deployed drones in and around the villages four times in the past month but the unmanned flying vehicles were unable to sight the leopard.