Encroachments in Tungareshwar driving away wild animals

The encroachments have led to the closing of four major watering holes in the sanctuary, forcing wildlife to stray away in search of food and water

MUMBAI: Rampant, unauthorised construction is driving wild animals away from Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Palghar district, claim activists. The encroachments have led to the closing of four major watering holes in the sanctuary, forcing wildlife to stray away in search of food and water, according to a recent survey by the Maharashtra wildlife protection department.

Encroachments in Tungareshwar driving away wild animals

The Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, an 85-sq-km stretch east of Vasai and Virar, is an important corridor connecting Sanjay Gandhi National Park to the Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary.

Environmental activists believe at least 20,000 illegal constructions are going on in the belt between Kaman, bordering the Tungareshwar sanctuary, and Virar East. Villages such as Chinchoti, Sativali, Pelhar and Mandvi are now brimming with illegal constructions, which are being used for residential as well as commercial purposes. “Several chemical factories have also come up in this part by encroaching upon the forest,” said Mekanzy Dabre, an environmentalist from Vasai.

Dabre added that the dumping of construction debris had destroyed the Pelhar and Tungareshwar rivers. “The rivers are seen getting polluted right from 200 meters of their origin. These rivers meet the Vasai creek, but due to the deforestation and encroachments, they have been destroyed completely,” he said Dabre.

As a result, wild animals and birds have started to either disappear from the sanctuary or wander into nearby villages looking for food. “A few years ago, golden foxes were routinely spotted in the Vasai mangroves, but now they have disappeared from the entire region. Even monkeys have moved out of the forest area and are pillaging villages on the periphery for easy access to food,” said Dabre.

Earlier this week, forest officials trapped one of Tungareshwar’s five leopards at Vasai Fort, over 15 km from the sanctuary, 22 days after locals first spotted it. According to Dabre, this was a matter of serious concern as the leopard had reached Vasai Fort after crossing two creeks and the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway. “Leopards need to be protected, as they play an important role in balancing the ecosystem,” he said.

Dabre has written several complaints to the forest authorities about the illegal constructions but has not heard back. “I have shot the entire area using a drone as proof, but still no action has been taken,” he said. This is despite the Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that there cannot be any commercial constructions in a one-kilometre periphery of a protected forest. In Tungarshwar, illegal constructions are encroaching upon and destroying the forest cover itself, added Dabre.

Following several complaints from activists and environmentalists, ST Chaure, an officer with the state wildlife department in Vasai, last month issued a notice to some landowners to stop an ongoing illegal construction in Vasai East, where the debris was being dumped in a watering hole in the sanctuary. Activists, however, claimed that the notice named five tribals whose whereabouts aren’t known and who aren’t connected with the construction. Chaure maintained that his office will take action if the construction work is not stopped.

According to activists, after a landslide in Vasai in the Tungareshwar sanctuary area killed two people, an investigation had revealed that the construction had encroached on a mountain. The activists had written to the authorities about the illegal constructions and requested them to conduct a survey and panchnama, but said that nothing has been done yet.

“The mafias have been carrying out illegal constructions in the forest land by forcefully evicting tribals from their traditional landholdings by hook-or-crook, and by taking advantage of the disputes over the land,” said Swapnil D’Cuna, an activist from the area.

Debi Goenka, an activist associated with the Bombay Environmental Action Group, an NGO, is also fighting a long-drawn legal battle to remove an allegedly illegally constructed ashram near the Tungareshwar temple. He said the Supreme Court had in May 2019 ordered the state government to remove the ashram, which has occupied over half a hectare of protected forest land. “Only the Tungareshwar temple is a legal structure in the entire forest range. All other constructions there are illegal,” Goenka said.

Chaure did not comment on D’Cuna and Goenka’s claims.