Kerala: Bird survey put on hold

Thrissur: The state forest department has decided to put on hold a bird survey in the state’s forests involving NGOs and forest officials due to the concerns raised by a section of birders and wildlife conservationists about the uploading of data along with the GPS location of endemic and endangered species of birds spotted at interiors of protected forest regions in the state through a free and open website ‘ebird’ that can be accessed across the globe.

DC has come to know that the forest department decision follows an RTI query that reached the top forest officials in the state against the details of the government funded surveys being uploaded online by the NGOs.

“The matter has been brought to my notice and the forest department is holding internal discussions on the issue,” chief wild life warden K.J. Varghese said. “We want the survey data to be transparent and official. By putting in some effort, the department officials themselves can also conduct the bird surveys in the protected interiors of the forest without the help of NGOs who are experts on birds. So, there is a possibility of keeping in check the entry of NGOs for ‘e-briding’ into the forest.”

Conservationists say members of NGOs, who get access to the protected forest regions in the state as members of bird survey with forest officials, upload the pictures and GPS locations of their spotting with the help of a special software used in mobile and tablets that saves the GPS coordinates of the location and uploads it to the site as they reach places where there is online connectivity.

Birders who have started a campaign against it in their WhatsApp group say that with the help of bird atlas surveys funded by Forest Department several data which could be otherwise considered confidential on birds and wildlife are uploaded in the site. This could easily be reviewed by the poachers and illegal pet traders across the globe putting their conservation at stake.