Omar Saif, PhD student, University of Edinburgh and Anwar Palash, PhD student, University of Macquarie attended the program as the panelists of the session held on Wednesday.

The panelists were the elephant researchers who worked on Asian elephants and human-elephant conflicts, said a press release on Sunday.

Suraiya Islam, Intern of Noazesh Knowledge Centre, started the session welcoming guests, telling about the history of Asian elephants in Bangladesh and the history of World Elephant Day.

The host and spokespersons had an interactive session on  importance of elephants, and its conservation and research.

Omar narrated the present and past status of elephants in Bangladesh and in the world, the methods used for elephant population surveys, main threats that our elephants are facing the most and how to mitigate these threats.

He suggested some measures for elephant conservation in Bangladesh, and also shared his future plans to protect elephants.

Palash talked about the role of World Elephant Day, distribution of elephants in Bangladesh, the main reason behind elephant population decline, the role of elephants in the ecosystem, and the role in our tourism sector.

Palash discussed short-term and long-term action plans that have been taken for elephant conservation in Bangladesh, and also suggested some solutions to protect elephants in Bangladesh.

Finally, both guests shared their work experiences and some exciting incidents  they experienced during their research inside the hilly forests and also gave some guidelines for new researchers who are interested in research on elephants.

WildTeam is a Bangladeshi non-profit organization founded in 2003 with a mission “changing the game for nature” has been working for the conservation of nature.

Noazesh Knowledge Centre (NKC) is a joint initiative of WildTeam, Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and Cosmos Foundation which works to inspire and support people to cultivate awareness, knowledge, and expertise, that would allow them to successfully engage in conservation-focused research, and careers.