On 5th July 2020, WCS-India organized a webinar for district court judges from Assam entitled 'Solutions to common issues in implementation of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972'. The webinar was attended by 38 participants from the judiciary and addressed common challenges faced by enforcement agencies in ensuring prosecution of wildlife criminals. Resource persons included a Senior Judge from the Guwahati High Court, Advocate General of Assam and senior officers from Police, Forest Departments, and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau. Post-workshop, WCS-India is drafting a list of recommendations for the judiciary and Forest Department that will help minimize mistakes during trial and improve prosecution rates.
On 20th July 2020, a web-workshop on law enforcement was organised for 30 officers of the Meghalaya Forest Department. This was a third such training for officers from the Meghalaya Forest Department. The four hour workshop covered important topics such as Definitions and Prohibitions under the Wildlife Protection Act (WLPA), 1972, Powers of Search, Seizure and Arrest under section 50, Forensic Science in Investigation of Wildlife Crime and Filing of Complaint under section 55. These sessions were delivered by resource persons: Mr. DP Bankhwal, retd. IFS, Mr. MI Varghese, retd. IFS, Dr. R.K. Singh, Wildlife Law Trainer, Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment, Dr. SP Goyal, Subject Matter Specialist, WII, Dehradun and Ms. Pradipty Bhardwaj, Legal Trainer, WCS-India. The webinar concluded with a question and answer session. Post-webinar, WCS-India shared model formats of various legal documents such as documents for compounding an offence, recording of confession statements as requested by Mr. HC Chaudhari, Addl. PCCF (WL) and CWLW, Meghalaya Forest Department.
On 7th August 2020, WCS-India conducted a webinar with 60 forest officers from Kerala Forest Department on Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The webinar was inaugurated by Mr. Surendrakumar, PCCF & CWLW. The resource persons included retired officers from the Kerala Forest Department, as well as Mr. Mohnish Kapoor, Head - Programme and Partnerships at Global Tiger Forum. Drawing from their experiences, they spoke about the key provision of WLPA, basics of Crime Scene Investigation and protection strategies for improving wildlife management using successful case examples. The webinar concluded with panel discussion on implementation of WLPA in various scenarios.