CHENNAI: The Snake Park Trust on Monday kick-started an interactive programme with school students where they would be taught to pursue wildlife conservation as a career. Currently, wildlife is pursued more as a hobby but not as a career.
“The session will be addressed by renowned wildlife experts who will not only share their experience, but also give insights on wildlife conservation finance, explaining the module to invest on people and planet,” said V Kalaiarasan, research director, Chennai Snake Park Trust.
In his maiden inaugural session, carnivore scientist Ravi Chellam, an expert in Asiatic Lions, came down heavily against the corporates for polluting the ecology and doing little through the corporate social responsibility funds. “These funds are currently absorbed mostly by the in-house foundations. So, the objectivity fails to reach the community,” he lamented.
Sharing his experience from Mylapore to Gir, Chellam insisted on scientific-based conservation and said people were trying to convert desert into forests. “The biodiversity should be conserved the way it is. India should have translocated the Gir lions rather than relocating the Cheetah from foreign countries,” he opined. “Protection of local habitat and its species are more important than converting a landscape or introducing wildlife.” S Paulraj, executive chairman, CSPT, also spoke.