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Saturday, May 1, 2010

TATR buffer zone gets govt nod

The state government on Friday approved the buffer zone proposal for the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), sources said. The buffer zone — mandated by the amended Wildlife Protection Act of 2006 — had been proposed by the Forest Department early last year, but had hit the roadblock due to opposition from local people’s representatives in Chandrapur, who termed it “anti-people”.

Incidentally, the clearance comes days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took it upon himself to prod the state government on to hasten the process. The TATR buffer zone was one of the items listed by the PM for swift action in a letter to Chief Minister Ashok Chavan last week.

The 1,150-sq km buffer zone has 79 villages and several mines operating in the vicinity. Mining is prohibited in the buffer zone, which is supposed to act as additional protection for wildlife. Local politicians had been saying the buffer zone will lead to relocation of villages when no such idea is part of the concept. It was alleged that the opposition was at the behest of the strong mining lobby.The area is also witnessing a fierce man-tiger conflict over the past four years, with over 60 people dying in tiger attacks. The buffer zone also specially provides for tackling the issue in a definite manner.

Overall, about 12 buffer zones have already been declared in different states so far.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/tatr-buffer-zone-gets-govt-nod/613643/

High tiger numbers in KNP worries conservationists

GUWAHATI, April 30 – Notwithstanding the unusually high tiger concentration in Kaziranga National Park as revealed in a recent camera-trap exercise, experts feel that the development also has darker shades which, if left unaddressed, could imperil the park’s long-term conservation prospects.

This is because quantitative assessment of conservation efforts sometimes tends to be unrealistic vis-à-vis the actual picture. According to Dr Bibhab Talukdar of Aaranyak, which conducted the camera-trapping estimation in Kaziranga, the much-trumpeted success of Kaziranga due to increasing numbers of rhinos, elephants and now even tigers could be a dangerous indicator.

“Unusual increase of these animals in a single protected can be a dangerous indicator. It may be that because of destruction of habitat in surrounding areas, animals have flocked into Kaziranga’s safety. Kaziranga’s ecosystem is highly dependent on preservation of forests in the Karbi Anglong hills,” Dr Talukdar said.

Conservationists are unanimous that restoring and sanctifying the contiguity of Kaziranga with the Karbi Anglong hills holds the key to long-term survival of the park.

“The entire area needs to be treated as a single conservationbelt. The State Government should take up the matter with the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council for declaring it as a single protected area,” Dr Talukdar said.

Underling the need for better management of Kaziranga in view of the increasing number of animals, especially the tiger, Dr Talukdar said that unless the tigers had a wider dispersal area, different problems, including infighting and conflict with humans, stood to intensify.

The man-tiger conflict is already more than palpable with a high incidence of cattle lifting by tigers in the fringe villages of Kaziranga. There have also been at least a couple of confirmed cases of retaliatory poisoning by the affected locals in the recent past. According to data with WWF-India, the one-year period from April 2008 to March 2009 saw as many as 171 cases of cattle lifting by tigers. The trend has persisted, with 130 cases from April 2009 till January this year.

PJ Bora of WWF-India which has been engaged in a programmeon mitigating the growing man-tiger conflict in Kaziranga said, “Any increase in hostilities between the tiger and the fringe-dwellers could spell doom for the animal. While payment of timely compensation to the affected people is a must, there is an urgent need to look into the reasons behind the tiger’s growing preference for domestic animals.”

The corridors linking Kaziranga with Karbi Anglong forests have suffered extensive degradation due to encroachment, illegal logging, stone mining, growing settlements and tourist facilities, etc., seriously disrupting wildlife movement, especially during the recurring floods.

Bora said that the existing important corridors, i.e., Haldibari, Kanchanjuri and Panbari, were under growing human pressure which needed to be checked to prevent any further degradation.

For a secure future of the tiger, experts suggest improved management of tiger habitat, including restoration and management of corridors between core areas through land-uses compatible with tiger conservation. “Creating additional or expanding existing protected areas to support viable, breeding tiger populations, and linking them with habitat corridors is an imperative need under the present circumstances,” a Forest official with a long experience of serving in tiger habitat said.

“In the past, the forests of Karbi Anglong and the grasslands of Kaziranga formed a single contiguous ecological belt with very few human habitations. But with the gradual opening up of the area on the southern side of the NH-37 resulted in settlements, industries, tourist facilities and tea gardens, underminingconservation concerns,” he said, adding that a policy decision at the government level was a must to check human and industrial pressures.

A corridor apart, encroachment has been a problem in some of the six subsequent additions to the 429.93-sq km Park such as the second, third, fourth and sixth. Pending court litigations have also compounded the process of evicting the settlers. Theadditions are: first addition Burhapahar 43.79 sq km, second addition Sildubi (6.47 sq km), third addition Panbari (0.69 sq km), fourth addition Kanchanjuri (0.89 sq km), fifth addition Haldibari (1.15 sq km) and sixth addition the stretch of the Brahmaputra river (including chars) running along the Park’s southern boundary.

http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=may0110/at09

Save the tiger campaign: Away from the forest home

Here is a story of successful relocation at the Simlipal reserve in Orissa. Today we look at how many families here are living comfortably after they were moved out to make way for the tiger.

Adivasis from Jenabil valley in Orissa's Simlipal Tiger Reserve (STR) in a bank for the first time in their lives to receive a part of Rs 10 lakhs that the National Tiger Conservation Authority has promised each of the 61 families, who have vacated their forest home.

Although their rehabilitation from the core area of the park was on the cards for years, no serious attempt was made until a new director took over last August.

"That itself shows that things could have been done much earlier and we could have got back all those valleys for wild life much earlier. In fact Jenabil would get back its former glory. We expect it to become a meadow, which will be frequented by herbivores and tigers naturally," says Biswajit Mohanty, member, National Board for Wildlife.

For the displaced people who have never lived outside the forests, it's the beginning of a new life. Their children can finally go to school.

"The government promised us Rs 10 lakhs and land. They have said they will give us Rs 1 lakh to build a house and the rest Rs 9 lakh will be in the form of fixed deposits. If our rehabilitation is proper, then others will also leave Simlipal," says Ganga, displaced Jenabil villager.

There are still three more villages in the tiger core area that need to be evacuated. Thanks to the good package people are willing to reconsider their views.

"We will take all care to train them in agriculture, horticulture and all those things. It's no longer the job of the Forest Department of the Simlipal Tiger Reserve, the whole of district administration has adopted it," says HS Upadhyay, director, STR.

Reducing human interference is key to increasing tiger numbers. The successful rehabilitation of the people of Jenabil will go a long way in bringing the big cat back to these meadows.