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Technology mediator for Human-wildlife conflicts in Lhuentse


Repellent installed in paddy field

Often the battleground for the vicious warfare between man and beast is crop-laden field of the farmer. Both venture into the war zone with no viable option at their disposal. On one side of the balance, the dwindling forests cover with not much of stuff to fill their yearning stomach, the wild animals sneak into the green field to steal their fill. On the other, a farmer has invested his own share of energy in the quest of securing a ration for his family for the year. He witnesses it go down the drain when a pack of wild animal pays a surprise and uninvited visit to his field one fateful night. At loss and burning with vengeance, he hunts down the culprit. But this doesn’t prove to be anything useful to put an end to the clashes. This battle if not done something is here to keep wagging for time immemorial.
On the comforting side, there is some solace with the fact that different stakeholders under Ministry of Agriculture and Forests is exploring all possible remedies and leaving no stone unturned. Every strategy is being tried out one such thing is the technology called “Sound Repellent Unit“. The recent concerted effort is initiated in Lhuentse by National Post Harvest Centre, Paro in collaboration with Dzongkhag Administration. Though it is not cent percent solution to nagging problem, it is expected to control and manage wild animal problems to certain extend.
The unit comes in a very compact, safe, power efficient, effective and environmentally-friendly pest repellent form. It is easy to operate in field pocket where the probabilities of attacking the standing field crop are deemed high. In current batch, 12 sound repellent units were installed at Jarray geog, 7 at Kurtoe, 5 at Tshenkar and another 5 at Gangzur. Although it is premature for beneficiaries to assess its implication, few beneficiaries illustrate that, “sound produced in a gap of 3 to 5 minutes along with bright light terrifies the wild pest. This has helped minimize crop damages by Monkeys, wild boar, porcupines, deer and bears”.  Currently, farmers are quite optimistic that their crop stands safe form wild pest damages and will be able to harvest it productively.
Installation of sound unit in aforementioned geog encourages the community to intensify agriculture activities. This is because with the device taking care, the labour requirements for guarding the field have been halved.  Dzongkhag agriculture sector has proposed few more sound repellents to allocate the same in other four geogs.
The installation of sound repellent in affected areas is likely to help augment the annual yield from the farmer’s field by losing less to wildlife depredation. Such move will also contribute in reducing poverty of farmers thereby making food available and make the family self sufficient. Therefore, agriculture sector would like to extend our amiable gratitude to National Post Harvest Centre on behalf of farmers for supplying sound repellent whereby they enjoyed the light of technology which was experiencing for the first time. Such technology is going to be proved as recess to farmers. They’ve always looked forward for such intervention from the government. Hence, we expect similar kind of support in near future as to improve the livelihood of rural people.

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