Sunil Limaye, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife-West) has been promoted to the post of Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) (PCCF) on Thursday. Limaye is an IFS officer of 1988 batch. Limaye is the only one with two species named after him, the jumping spider Jerzego Sunillimaye and a lizard named Cnemaspis Limayei. He is also the former Director of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in Mumbai. After acquiring the necessary academic qualifications in Forest and Wildlife Management, he started his career as Deputy Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) in Kolhapur.

 

Hiking, trekking and navigating through the jungles of Kolhapur district in southern Maharashtra during his college days, Limaye always shared a close bond with nature. Limaye tackled encrochment by major commercial entities on forest land around Mumbai, Thane and Pune during his service. He closely worked with tribal communities, who have, for generations, depended on forests for years for their livelihood. Limaye as Field Director of the SGNP, teamed up with wildlife researchers to study leopard movement, their dietary habits and began advising people, particularly from the tribal communities, on how to minimise man-animal conflict. He is promoted in the place of PCCF (Wildlife) Nitin Kakodkar. Along with Limaye, S G Tembhurnikar, APCCF (CAMPA) is also promoted to the post of PCCF (CAMPA). Both officers will hold their posts at Nagpur office soon.