Forest Deptt to use MARVEL to establish more AI Walls in TATR, PTR soon

 

 

 

Taking a step forward towards adoption of technology in wildlife monitoring and to curb man-animal conflict in tiger reserves, the Maharashtra Forest Department is taking help of the Police Department to set up a ‘Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)’ named Maharashtra Advanced Research and Vigilance for Enforcement of Reformed Laws (MARVEL) in Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Nagpur and Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Chandrapur district soon. Under this MARVEL initiative, Forest Department will purchase Artificial Intelligence (AI) cameras to set up ‘Virtual Walls’, which will be connected to this SPV to monitor wild-animal movement in buffer villages where the man-animal conflict is on the rise.

 

“We got the approval of the Chief Secretary to utilise SPV in forest areas and specially in TATR and PTR initially. Currently, we have installed 76 AI cameras in 16 buffer villages of Tadoba and under this initiative, more cameras will be purchased soon to connect remaining 76 villages,” Dr Prabhunath Shukla, Field Director, TATR told ‘The Hitavada’. Normally, MARVEL is taken up to monitor crime and for law enforcement in the State, but now, it will help curb the man-animal conflicts also in Maharashtra. For setting up this SPV, the State Government is taking the help of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Nagpur, and Pinaka Technologies Private Limited. This initiative marks the first formal implementation of AI within a police set-up by any State and now, in Forest Department as well. MARVEL will use AI algorithms to analyse, visualise, and alert on key entities, allowing the Forest staff to take action. These AI algorithms will help make sense of the data, aiding to restrict wild-animals like tigers, leopards and sloth bears to enter human settlements. The existing 76 ‘Virtual Walls’ in 16 villages of TATR helped to curb man-animal conflict drastically in last two years. The ‘Virtual Wall’ provided whopping 9,267 alerts of wild-animals that tried to enter in the range of the wall in last two years. Keeping the success in mind, the Forest Department is planning to establish more such ‘AI Walls’ in PTR in Nagpur division as well. Forest Department established this ‘AI Wall’ technology as a pilot project in TATR in 2023 and PTR in 2024. Both tiger reserves got fruitful results and now, the department is also planning to establish it in other tiger reserves too.

 

 

In a major step towards mitigation of man-animal conflict, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between State Government owned MARVEL Company and Forest Department to deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) in wildlife management, informed Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule in a review meeting held at Niyojan Bhavan, recently. As part of the plan, over 900 AI cameras will be installed across conflict zones in forest areas to monitor wild animal movement and prevent encounters, informed Bawankule. In addition, officials were directed to ensure real-time tracking and transparency of plantation activities by uploading geo-tagged photographs through the ‘Amrut Vriksh’ mobile application.

 

This move is set to enhance accountability and progress monitoring under the 10-Crore Tree Plantation campaign. Srinivas Rao, PCCF (Wildlife); Dr Kishor Mankar, Field Director, Pench Tiger Reserve; Dr Prabhunath Shukla, Field Director, TATR; Dr Vipin Itankar, Nagpur district collector; Dr Abhijit Chaudhari, Nagpur Municipal Commissioner and Administrator; Harssh Poddar, SP, Nagpur Rural; Dr Vinita Vyas, DCF, Nagpur; Jairam Gowda, Field Director, Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve; Akshay Gajbhiye, Deputy Director, PTR; Vaishnavi B, Additional Municipal Commissioner; Vinayak Mahamuni, CEO, Nagpur Zilla Parishad; N R Raut, DFO, Nagpur; and other officials also were present in the meeting.