NAGPUR: A four-member National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) team of experts, constituted for an independent management effectiveness evaluation (MEE) of tiger reserves has arrived in city. It will visit Pench, Tadoba-Andhari and Melghat tiger reserves from October 20-25.
On August 27, NTCA had reconstituted the MEE committee under the chairmanship of P C Kotwal, with Ajay Desai and J A Khan as members. They will be in Pench on Wednesday. The team will head for Tadoba-Andhari in Chandrapur district on October 21 and later Melghat. Earlier, the panel was headed by Arin Ghosh and Belinda Wright of Wildlife Protection Society of India ( WPSI) was its member.
All 39 tiger reserves in the country have been divided into five clusters. Kotwal will evaluate cluster I which includes Dudhwa (Uttar Pradesh) and Corbett (Uttarakhand), Ranthambhore and Sariska (Rajasthan), Melghat, Pench, Tadoba-Andhari and Sahyadri (Maharashtra) reserves.
The cluster II includes all six tiger reserves viz. Bandhavgarh, Kanha, Pench, Satpura-Bori, Panna and Sanjay-Dubri in Madhya Pradesh. The committee for these is headed by ex-director of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) V B Sawarkar. Dr Erach Bharucha and Rajeev Sharma are members.
This evaluation of the reserves is being done after four years. The last independent management effectiveness evaluation was conducted in 2006. Interestingly, 740 sq km Sahyadri Tiger Reserve in Western Maharashtra, which was notified on January 5 this year, will also be evaluated. The evaluation will include array of parameters including biotic pressure, human presence, villages, and protection among other things.
The evaluation of tiger reserves in 2006 had rated Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Chandrapur district and Pench Tiger Reserve as satisfactory while Melghat Tiger Reserve was rated as poor. However, Melghat has since improved significantly with better sightings record.
Talking to TOI, S P Yadav, joint director of NTCA, said the committee would check if the chosen approaches in tiger reserve management were sound, adequate and appropriate. It would also see whether funds allocated were being used effectively for meeting the objectives of management. Yadav said the evaluation would be done on the basis of parameters set by Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global NGO.
The WII has provided a pre-assessment orientation to the experts for using the new matrix, apart from collation/publication of the results with financial support from the NTCA. The report of each committee will be submitted to the WII in six months. The panels will evaluate plans to see process and outcomes of long-term monitoring of the biological and socio-cultural resources of reserves.
Read more: Evaluation team to visit Pench, Tadoba, Melghat - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/Evaluation-team-to-visit-Pench-Tadoba-Melghat/articleshow/6778138.cms#ixzz12s70iHQL
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