| Biogrpahy
Prasanta Kumar Pandit secured his 1st class post graduate degree
on Botany under University of Calcutta, West Bengal, India in
the year 1883. After that he did research work as a part time
scholar on Mycopathological aspect "Dieback disease of Guava in
West Bengal, India" under department of Botany, University of
Calcutta.
He had joined in the West Bengal Forest
Service in the year 1988 and then to Indian Forest Service in
the year 1996 in West Bengal Cadre.
After joining in Forest service he had
undergone two years training at State Forest Service College,
Burnihat, Assam, India where he taught several subjects on
Forestry and Wildlife.
He has long experience for Conservation of
Biodiversity and participatory Forest and wildlife management
under his different capacities under Government department.
Thereafter, he has specially trained on
wildlife management planning at Wild Life Institute of India (WII),
Dehradun, India and in abroad like Australia, Indonesia and
Malaysia during the year 1993 and 1994.
He has opportunity to work at Buxa Tiger
Reserve and Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary (famous for the great
Indian One-horned Rhinoceros). He wrote draft Management Plan of Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary under UNDP – WII, Dehradun Project.
He has also the opportunity to work on NTFPs of northern part
and eastern Himalayas of West Bengal, Soil & Moisture
Conservation work in south-western part of West Bengal.
In his various capacities in different part of
south-West Bengal worked on participatory forest management and
dealt with more than 2000 nos. of Joint Forest Management
Committees (JFMCs) directly or indirectly where involvement of
people is remarkable for biodiversity conservation and this not
only limits in the boundary of the forests but also goes beyond
it into the agriculture field of people living in the fringe
areas of forests. These areas have also approximate 200 Self
Help Groups which are working amongst JFMCs members and worked
with consultation of other departments like Agriculture,
Horticulture, Irrigation, Small scale Industries, Sericulture
etc.
He had also managed a mini zoo for about three
years. In his various capacities, he has posted in different
districts of West Bengal like Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar,
Purulia, Bankura, Medinipur and South-24 Parganas.
He has published 22 articles on nationally and
internationally famous journals on wildlife, NTFPs, Traditional
Knowledge based Practices, Sacred Groves and Mycopathological
Aspects. Not only that more than 20 articles have been published
in different local and Government magazines (given details in a
table).
He is also worked as resource person in
Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India, where he used to
teach some subjects on forestry; Rural Development Center,
Kalyani, where he used to teach for training of fringe area
people and elected members of local government. He constructed a
Non-Timber Forest Produce museum at Sukna near Siliguri town in
northern part of Bengal when he was DFO in MFP Division and
managed 4 eco-tourism centers of West Bengal Forest Development
Corporation Limited as a capacity of Divisional Manager.
Presently he is working as a Deputy Field
Director, Sundarban Tiger Reserve, which is one of the world
heritage sites and managing unique mangrove biodiversity and
protecting the tiger population.
To add with, he has duly served in Wildlife in
a considerable part of his career with special emphasis on
protection of endangered species like Royal Bengal Tiger, One-horned Rhino, Asian Elephant, Leopard, Gangetic Dolphin,
Crocodile etc. along with management of eco-tourism,
participatory forest management and mitigation of human-animal
conflict. He has a deep passion for
photography and some of his works are displayed in this website. |
Prasanta Kumar Pandit, IFS |
