Garbage linked to human-wildlife conflict in Aarey Milk Colony

Is the increasing amount of garbage an important driving factor for humanwildlife conflict in Aarey Milk Colony A rootcause analysis done by NGO Empower Foundation has found that there is a correlationThe NGO mapped each conflict location with the garbage spots which showed a direct link Besides the forest fires in 2021 were mapped to the conflict zone and also show a connectionDr Jalpesh Mehta founderchairperson of Empower Foundation said ldquoThe findings of the RCA rootcause analysis proves the cycle in the illustration we have submitted to the authorities which establishes that unattended and ever increasing garbage is the root cause of the problem humanwildlife conflict Increasing number of dogs pigs cows buffalos hens etc feed on the garbage and become the easy prey base for leopardsrdquo This brings the wild cats closer to the human settlementldquoMoreover garbage is at times burnt causing forest fires which help increase encroachment and illegal immigration in Aarey forest This in turn causes the humanleopard conflictrdquoThe NGO has been working on wildlife conservation especially of leopards in Mumbai for the past 12 years The humanleopard conflict in Aarey colony had peaked in 2013 and 2017 Between August and October this year Aarey colony witnessed an increase in leopard conflicts with nine attacks in less than two monthsTo get to the root cause of these attacks the NGO conducted an analysis of the onground situation and learnt that garbage was an important issue Between November 15 and 21 its team collected photographs of the spots with open unattended garbage dumped in large quantities The garbage consisted of plastic thermocol paper construction waste POP ceramic ware debris food and even dead buffalo calves and an ailing buffalo allegedly left to die the NGO said The team photographed 56 such spots and shared a detailed report with Aarey Milk Colony CEO and MLA Ravindra Waikar for their and BMCrsquos intervention A copy of the report was also shared with state environment minister Aaditya Thackeray and Sunil Limaye PCCF WildlifeThe NGO has requested the authorities and recommended that they take certain steps immediately including cleaning all 56 spots ldquoOur estimate says that this exercise at Aarey can throw up almost 10 per cent of Mumbairsquos daily contribution of municipal waste 700 metric tonnes or MT in one go This will be much more than what Navi Mumbai 700 MT Goa250 MT Chandigarh 479 MT Puducherry 415 MT Himachal Pradesh 377 MT or northeastern states generate in a dayrdquo states the reportThe NGO has also demanded the setting up of large waste bins and regular removal of the waste which it says is clearly missingldquoEnsure that commercial vehicles are checked at entry points as it has been noticed that many heavy vehicles containing construction waste or debris dump their waste in Aarey forest turning it into a landfill The authorities should also do a survey of domicile 15 years in Maharashtra of the residents in conflictaffected areas to understand the core issue or rule out any encroachmentrdquo Mehta said56No of spots in Aarey where garbage has been found