Arunachal: Wildlife Monitoring Training Held at D’Ering Sanctuary
The training, organised by D’Ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary with ATREE, aimed to strengthen scientific wildlife and habitat monitoring skills of frontline staff.
PASIGHAT- D’Ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary (DMWS) organised a training and capacity-building workshop on systematic wildlife and habitat monitoring for its frontline staff at Pasighat in East Siang district on December 26, in collaboration with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology & the Environment (ATREE).
The workshop brought together 35 frontline forest staff and focused on strengthening their technical skills in scientific wildlife monitoring methods. The initiative aimed to support long-term conservation planning through systematic, field-based data collection on plant and animal species within the sanctuary.
In her welcome address, Kempi Ete, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), D’Ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary, underlined the importance of regular and structured monitoring for effective wildlife management. She noted that frontline staff spend a significant amount of time in the field and that the training would enable them to carry out the sanctuary’s first systematic baseline assessment of wildlife and habitats.
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A technical session on camera trapping was conducted by Dr Rajkamal Goswami, Fellow and lead of the ATREE Arunachal Pradesh team. He said the initiative marked an important step towards undertaking the first landscape-scale baseline assessment of wildlife and habitat at D’Ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary. The session covered the design and functioning of camera traps, selection of suitable equipment, different camera trapping approaches and best practices for data management.
The second technical session was led by Dr Aavika Dhanda, Project Manager at ATREE Arunachal Pradesh, who focused on bird and habitat monitoring. Her presentation highlighted practical methods for assessing bird diversity and habitat conditions, particularly in grassland ecosystems.
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In the afternoon, a field demonstration was jointly conducted by Dr Aavika Dhanda along with Atto Mimi and Prachaya Sharma. Participants received hands-on training in deploying camera traps, using GPS handsets and rangefinders, and handling different camera trap models in field conditions.
Officials said the workshop equipped frontline staff with practical tools and knowledge to strengthen wildlife and habitat monitoring efforts at the sanctuary, contributing to improved conservation outcomes. DFO Kempi Ete expressed appreciation to the ATREE team for organising the training at short notice and said such initiatives were crucial for building long-term technical capacity among frontline personnel.
All participants were awarded certificates of completion at the end of the training programme.
