WII for wildlife-friendly infrastructure building

Jotirmay Thapliyal

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, February 7

The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has suggested measures for promoting wildlife-friendly infrastructure in the country.

The WII has prepared a draft for building infrastructure that takes care of the interests of wildlife. It held that wildlife-friendly infrastructure would help in countering the negative impacts of habitat fragmentation and other challenges.

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change had recently assigned the responsibility to the WII to prepare a technical document “Eco-friendly measures to mitigate impacts of linear infrastructure on wildlife” for rail, road and power transmission line planners and managers, forest and wildlife managers and wildlife biologists and other target groups.

Some impacts and risks of infrastructure projects are direct, such as wildlife deaths due to collisions and electrocution. There are indirect effects such as changes in movement pattern due to light and noise and decrease in population or species viability over the time as a result of their isolation in space.

Senior WII scientist Dr Asha Rajvanshi says the guidelines in the document discuss these risks and impacts, including the fragmentation of critical wildlife habitat, the isolation of animal and plant communities and other factors.

“The draft guidelines give detailed recommendations for an appropriate design of roadways and railways. Beyond engineering design options, measures to minimise impacts of noise and light are part of the guidelines. The use of signage, early warning systems and other approaches to reduce safety risks both to people and wildlife have also been suggested in the draft document,” Rajvanshi said.

The WII has invited suggestions from people on its draft guideline document. The WII suggestions come at a time when large scale infrastructure development activities are taking place in the country, including Uttarakhand.