BANGALORE: Many tiger reserves have vast stretches of revenue land in the core area which are owned by private parties. These are patches of land that were leased out or sold pre-Independence. The new conflict facing the government is: how it can protect wild zones which have private properties thriving within them. One such reserve is Biligere Ranga Temple (BRT) sanctuary in Karnataka that has been recently proposed to be declared a tiger reserve.
These revenue enclosures are owned by and leased to major industrialists as per documents with the district commissioner's office. Secretary, revenue department, K S Prabhakar confirmed: "There are a number of revenue enclosures inside BRT and companies like the Birlas and TVS group own some of them. But I am not sure if any changes would be made to these leases."
Principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) B K Singh also told TOI: "We are aware that there is a revenue enclosure of 400 to 500 acres. The leases are very old. They are growing coffee there. As far as I know four out of five leases have a long time to expire. I am not sure what has to be done about this patch of land. Either the land has to be relocated or acquired by the government."
Even though coffee may be called by many as a non-polluting industry locals raised concerns about pesticide usage and movement of labourers inside the reserve. "When tribals are living inside the forest, officials raise so many questions that we are interfering with the wild but the industrialists own so much land here in the core area. Isn't that going to interfere with the wild? There have been no relocations of tribals so far. We are hoping that BRT will really be the first sanctuary to have Soligas inside. We will continue our conservation work here. We worship our tigers and elephants and will continue sustainable harvesting of honey, lichen, soap nuts and others," said a leader of the soliga tribe from Chamrajanagar district, Madegowda C.
The forest department is clueless whether this huge revenue enclosure can be acquired by the government and handed over to the wild.
The land that is known to be home to Soliga tribals earlier made headlines when tribals did not agree to move out of the core area. Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh had recently announced that BRT could be the first example that would see co-existence of tribals and tigers, since evicting soligas from their homeland could be disastrous.
The forest department seems to have no answers on how such cases would be handled. The Kudremukh national park, also a proposed tiger reserve has a huge chunk of land owned by Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited (KIOCL). The forest department is well aware of this contradiction in land ownership in the forest area but as there has been no directive from the government and the ministry of environments and forests, no action has been initiated with regard to getting back the land from the company.
The land owned by these private companies were leased to them decades ago and it was later that some areas of that land was declared tiger reserve area. In such an area, no activity is supposed to be undertaken including running estates even if that involves minimal human activity. But forest and revenue officials are clueless about the future of the status of the land as leases of some of the patches run into decades.
KIOCL's eco project
KIOCL Ltd recently sent a detailed project report (DPR) to Jungle Lodges and Resort for the eco-tourism project, KIOCL Ltd CMD K Ranganath said. The project will come in 162 hectares of revenue land lease area and not in Kudremukh National Park (KNP) area. "Our project will not be in any conflict with tiger conservation project that the Union ministry of environment and forest wants to start in KNP, and will be in consonance with laws of the land," he said. "The eco-tourism project mooted by us will see the use of electric carts, tap solar and wind energy and also have a no-plastic zone," Ranganath explained. Besides, the use of biodegradable materials including for floor mats will make the project truly 'green'. The other major spin off would be the employment generation for the locals and full utilisation of assets created in Kudremukh township that has been set up using taxpayers' money, he added.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Private-space-in-the-wild-is-no-mild-worry/articleshow/9319418.cms
No comments:
Post a Comment