Minutes of Meetings

Minutes of the meeting of the Core Committee of the Tripura JICA Project on Invenorization of the Biodiversity resources held in the Conference hall of Aranya Bhavan, Agartala on 21st July 2009 at 4 pm.

A meeting of the Core Committee of the Biodiversity conservation component of the Tripura JICA Project was held in the conference hall of Aranya Bhavan, Agartala under the chairmanship of the Chief Wildlife Warden, Govt. of Tripura who is also the chairman of the Core Committee on the 21st July, 2009 at 4.00 P.M. The list of participants present is annexed at Annexure I. The leave of absence was granted to the Joint Director of the ICAR, NEH Region and Head of Department, Zoology of Tripura University.
2. The Member Secretary of the Core Committee welcomed the Participants and informed that that the road map for carrying out the project objective shall be finalized in the workshop proposed to be held at Agartala on the 25th July, 09 and requested the participants of the Member Institutions to take part in the proposed workshop. It was followed by remarks by the Chairman and he briefly described the agenda and purpose of the meeting. These include,
• To review the progress of work on biodiversity inventorization in identified hotspots.
• To discuss main issues concerning the inception reports submitted by the various Member Institutions.
• To understand and finalize the various concerns of Member Institutions on initiation of field work for the bio-diversity assessment
• To finalize the agenda and venue for the workshop to be held on the 25 July 2009.
3. Dr. A.M. Dixit, Biodiversity Conservation Specialist of the PMC described about his experience on his visits of some of the identified hotspot sites in South and North districts. After detailed discussions the following resolutions emerged in the meeting,
4. Progress of work
• The MoU has been authenticated/ signed by all the Member institutions and as per agreement, first instalment of the budget (i.e. 15% of total amount ) has been released to the Member Institutions. The amount released so far are,
Zoology Department, Tripura University = Rs. 77,055/-
Botany Department, Tripura University = Rs. 1,98,825/-
College of Fisheries, Lembucherra = Rs.40,178/-
ARPAN, Agartala = Rs.1,52,460/-
Dishari, Belonia = Rs.4,10,685/-

• The Member Institutions, excepting Dishari, completed the selection of project staff. General Secretary, Dishari informed the Core committee that while they had appointed one Research Associate for mammalian faunal inventory work, they are in the process of recruiting other project staff.
• Chairman of the Core committee informed that Ms. Swapna N shall will coordinate and monitor the progress of all the BD inventory work of different Member Institutions and also coordinate & monitor the Socio-economic assessment work of the ARPAN.
• Dr. S.D Biju and his team from Delhi University has visited the state and agreed to work on inventorization of the Herpetofauna resources but they are yet to sign the MoU.

5. Inception Report
The Member Institutions submitted their revised inception report to the PMU. The members of the PMC reviewed the same. The detailed comments and suggestions have been made separately for each taxa and are circulated amongst the respective Principal Investigators for their incorporation (see attachments) following general observations were also made:
i. Except in case of Birds and Mammals, suggested sampling approach and methodologies, analysis of data by other groups are found to be not clear and thus require revision in detail.
ii. Clear work plan is required to be submitted.
iii. Remarks about accountability of the P.I. of Plant and Butterfly studies need further clarifications.
6. Concerns of Member Institutions
• The Member Institutions need to be clear on the actual number of hot-spot sites to be surveyed. The Core Committee observed that to start with, all the groups, except the one assessing the fish (aquatic) resources will cover the entire 34 identified hotspots for biodiversity inventorization. And for assessment of the fish (aquatic) resources, the number of hot spots would be 10. Considering that the density and availability in absolute terms to vary with reference to season, the Core committee observed that fishery field work need to be initiated at the earliest.
• The Core Committee observed that the work elements, season etc. and associated budget was derived through a long process of discussion and is arrived at after long deliberations and so the Member Institutions shall abide by the same. The Core committee further observed that the Member Institutions shall start the surveys based on their experience of working on these sites, the Core Committee will review the position in future.
• The groups need to have a quick reconnaissance and initial round of discussion with concerned forest officials to make themselves familiar with the field logistics.
• Mr. Tsuji, Team Leader, PMC informed that the vegetation and elevation map of the entire project area is under preparation and shall be available within a period of one month. Study team can access these maps for designing their sampling. Also, some Russian topo sheets, which are not restricted for use in field, can be acquired from Working Plan Division.
• Some of the project equipments need to be purchased by PMU and shall be provided to the concerned groups.
• The seasonal sampling for the Socio-economic study need not be carried out and instead the study team may resort to sampling approach to cover different strata of the forest dependent communities.
• Chairman Core Committee observed that in addition to primary data each team should collect and review appropriate secondary data from various government and other institutions including University Departments.

7. Inception Workshop
a. The Core Committee decided that the workshop shall be held in the Conference Hall of Aranya Bhavan, Agartala on 25th July 2009 from 11 A.M
b. The workshop will commence from at 11.00 A.M and will complete its proceeding by the end of the day.
c. The study teams shall make a presentation about the method and approach of the study, keeping in view the comments made by the members of the PMC on their inception report. Each team will be given a period of 15 minutes for their presentation and another 15 minutes will be kept for discussions.
d. Chairman of the Core Committee exhorted the Project staff and requested them to make their presentations on the road map for the job.
8. The meeting was concluded thanking all the members present.

Appendix