BANGALORE: Union environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh is on the warpath again, but this time he could well find an army of supporters in Karnataka for his initiative. He wants the Kudremukh National Park, 350km from Bangalore in Chikmagalur district, to be made a tiger reserve.
In a letter to chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, the minister, who hails from Chikmagalur district, said by doing this, the park's biodiversity can be saved from future mining threats. He has asked the government to send him a proposal under Section 38V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, to declare the park a tiger reserve.
To buttress his suggestion, Ramesh said the area is biologically significant for notification as a tiger reserve since it's located amid other good tiger areas in the Malnad-Mysore landscape. In the last all-India tiger population estimate, the Kudremukh-Bhadra landscape has one of the three distinct tiger populations in Karnataka which extends up to the Bhimasankar area in Maharashtra. Independent surveys conducted by Bangalore-based Centre for Wildlife Studies have also found that the area could potentially support a viable tiger population.
The Kudremukh Iron Ore Company, which had been operating in the area, has been closed down following a final judgment of the Supreme Court in 2002 and all major operations stand legally terminated since December 2005. Some machinery and infrastructure still remains and needs to be removed. Ramesh said there are several small revenue enclaves within the park and people don't have access to employment opportunities and also suffer due to man-animal conflict. There were reports that around 450 families have requested the state government for relocation and 12 of them have been moved last year.
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