DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION BIOLOGY

Establishment:

The Department of Conservation Biology was designed from inception as a course to promote discourse, interest and research in the field of conservation, wildlife, forestry and Biodiversity. The importance of this field cannot be justified enough in these times and especially in India. The Department of Conservation Biology, Durgapur Government College, is one of its kind in eastern India and a premier teaching-learning centre of the district.

The need for such a course was recognized by wildlife conservation organizations in the 1970s. There have been several important milestones in the brief history of planning and implementation of this M.Sc. course. The first one came in the form of a national symposium on “The Role of University Teaching in Wildlife” hosted by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) at Aligarh in early 1986. Conservation Biology has been an important course taught at various levels outside India for many years now. Our target is to promote this hard research in our geographical area. There are other institutions that have existed or grown up in recent years to tackle the same problem. Some of these are central universities, some promoted by bodies such as WII or TIFR, and some are Private Universities. But there are no such programs taught in the eastern region of the country. The M.Sc. course in Conservation Biology at Durgapur Government College under the University of Burdwan was introduced in the year 2007 (G.O. : FC (S)/PG/Adm/21/2007-08/107 dated: 09/08/2007) to impart training in the field of Conservation Science and to further the cause of wildlife conservation in India and elsewhere. This course under the University of Burdwan was serving as a “Model Course” to train conservation biologists in India. The Department along with Durgapur Government College transferred its affiliation to KaziNazrul University, Asansol in 2015 (G.O.: 613-Edn(U)/1U (KNU) – 11/13 dt. 23.06.2015 and DGC/15/469/Prayer dt. 23/07/2015)

Durgapur Govt. College is perfectly suitable for this subject being taught here since the students of this subject have to visit and learn field study of various ecological systems like forests, marine, riverine, lake, paddy field, Industrial City, villages, towns, mountains etc. and we have all of these within a day’s journey. In addition we can have experts from local environmental NGOs, Forest Departments and various organizations visit Durgapur Govt. College since travelling to and from Durgapur is very easy. Finally the Durgapur Govt. College has a very big campus and a large part of it is untouched and can act as local field where the students can learn how to perform various practical works before they go to the real forests.After its establishment in 2007, the department has endeavored to inculcate in its student the philosophy of conservation and has taken students on field trips to places like Ranthambore, Kanha, Doars, Digha, Manas, Sunderbans etc. Students have been motivated enough to pursue Ph. D. in the same field and 06 students have been awarded doctoral degree under the sole supervision of Dr Debnath Palit, Former Head of Conservation Biology (from 2011 to 2014). Various major and minor projects funded by DST, West Bengal have been run from this department. The students and faculty of the department have carried out Biodiversity analysis of Gorpanchkot, Panchet Hills as a part of EIA study on request of Mr. Jayanta Moitra (M.D., EMTRC) an NGO based in New Delhi.