Toll-Free Number Stems Human-Wildlife Conflicts

免费热线解决人类野生动物冲突

India’s Project Wild Seve allows people who have suffered crop or livestock loss from wild animals to streamline the compensation process, thus helping both farmers and wildlife.

印度项目Wild Seve让那些由于野生动物饱受庄稼和家畜损失的人们简化补偿流程，既帮助了农场主，又帮助了野生生物。

撰文/播音：斯蒂夫·米尔斯基(Steve Mirsky)

翻译：郭鑫鹏

审校：丁可含

“I have now worked in seven states across India, and we’ve looked at human-wildlife interactions, particularly human-wildlife conflict ranging from crop loss, livestock predation, human death, human injury and property damage.”

“我已经在印度的七个州工作过，观察人与野生生物的互动，特别是人类与野生生物的冲突，诸如作物受损、家畜遇袭、人身和财产损失。

Krithi Karanth, a Wildlife Conservation Society researcher also affiliated with India’s Centre for Wildlife Studies and Duke University in the U.S.

国际野生生物保护学会研究员克里蒂·卡伦斯也与印度野生动物研究中心和美国杜克大学有合作。

“Fortunately most of the losses are crop losses and to a much lower extent livestock predation, property damage, human injury and human death occur…the policies and procedures for compensation varies hugely among states in India, but there is a compensation process in most states. What we also found is that less than 30 percent of affected people are filing. They’re very frustrated with the bureaucracy…so in 2013 I thought of an idea, because I travel for hundreds of villages across India for my research projects. And we realized that everybody had access to cell phones-it was very simple for people to call in and report an incident. So with my collaborator Nikhil Velpanur, in 2013 we set up a web portal and a technology platform that integrates a toll-free number with the ability to address calls that came in.

“幸运的是，大部分损失是农作物损失和更小程度的家畜损失、财产损失、人类受伤和死亡发生…政策和补偿程序在印度的不同州有很大的不同，但是在大部分州都有补偿措施。但是我们也发现只有不到30%受影响的人得到了归档。他们对于政府办事效率非常失望…所以2013年，我想到一个主意，由于研究项目我到过印度许多村庄。我们发现每个人都有移动电话，因此人们可以方便地进行通知、汇报事故。我和我的合作者尼基尔·韦帕尔在2013年建立了一个网站入口和整合了免费热线通道和记录拨入电话的技术平台。

“So the idea is very simple. Anybody experiencing a conflict incident calls in to the toll-free number and our field coordinator assigns our field agents to go and evaluate the problem. Once the evaluation is done we help them file the documentation…and so in 2015 we launched Project Wild Seve in Bandipore and Nagarahole National Parks. We covered over 300 villages by distributing 30000 pamphlets. What we’ve been able to achieve I think has far exceeded my expectations and is pretty remarkable. In a year, we’ve helped over 3400 cases files and recorded with the government. This has allowed almost 1000 families who have already achieved compensation and another 2400 well on their way to receiving compensation.

“所以这个方案很简单。遭受冲突事故的人们打免费热线，然后我们的农场协调员安排农场专员前往发生地对问题进行评估。当评估完成后，我们帮助将其归档…于是在2015年我们在本迪布尔和纳加尔霍雷国家公园启动了Wild Seve项目。整个项目覆盖了300个村庄，发放了30000本宣传册。目前的结果已经远超我们期望，而且成果显著。一年之内，我们帮助政府记录和归档了超过3400起事件，这使得接近1000个家庭收到了补偿和2400个家庭正在办理接受补偿手续。“

“I feel that Wild Seve is scalable and adaptable to any place or any country in the world where we see human-wildlife conflict. It’s a simple system that works off a toll-free number which can be established anywhere…it is not the only solution to addressing human-wildlife conflicts, but it’s certainly one tool we have in our toolbox, and certainly from an Indian perspective it’s very much part of our policies.”

“我认为Wild Seve项目还可以改进升级，并且可以适应世界上其他有人类与野生动物冲突的国家和地区。这个系统很简单，通过一个在哪儿都可以设置的免费热线便可以运行…这并不是解决人类野生动物冲突的唯一方法，但这是一个我们可以选择使用的措施。并在印度得以发挥其效用。”

-Steve Mirsky