A Catholic bishop in Kerala state in southern India has accused its communist-led government of inaction after 12 people, including Christians, were killed in wild animal attacks in the past two months. Source: UCA News.
“The [Kerala] state government is not doing enough to restrict wild animals in the forest,” Idukki Bishop John Nellikunnel said.
Bishop Nellikunnel also joined a protest march on Tuesday convened by the All Kerala Catholic Congress, a laity organisation of the Syro-Malabar Church, in Idukki district.
Some 22 per cent of this northern district’s estimated one million people are Christians, mostly members of the Eastern rite Church based in Kerala.
The farmers want the government to protect their lives and livelihoods from rising attacks by wild animals, particularly elephants, which enter human habitats seeking water and food as forest resources dry up in the four-month-long summer starting in February.
“A vast majority of the people living in the periphery of the forests are living in fear, and the government should find a permanent solution to this serious problem,” the prelate said.
Bishop Nellikunnel said the government has been ignoring the desperate pleas of the farmers for years on the pretext of protecting wildlife and the environment.
“The government should ensure no life is lost due to the human-animal conflict anymore,” he said.
Bishop Nellikunnel said if the government failed to act with urgency, “the diocese will join the farmers in more such protests until their safety is ensured.”
Besides the elephants, “the wild boars make life miserable for the farmers as they destroy the standing crops,” said Fr Jins Karakkat, director of media commission in Idukki Diocese.
Till the wild animal menace started a few years ago, local farmers used to be self-sufficient in their basic food requirements, he added.
Kerala borders the Western Ghats, a range of mountains along the western coast of India, which has about 10,000, or about 25 per cent, of the world’s wild Asian elephant population.
The farmers blame stringent laws such as the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 for their plight.
The law prescribes a jail term of up to seven years and steep fines for harming wild animals, though it is permissible to kill them if they pose a threat to human life.
FULL STORY
Catholic prelate slams Indian state over wild animal attacks (UCA News)
