Maharashtra notifies 269 sq. km. Kanhargaon Wildlife Sanctuary, state’s 50th

The Maharashtra revenue and forest department on Monday notified the Kanhargaon Wildlife Sanctuary, which will be spread over 269 square kilometres in Chandrapur district

The Maharashtra revenue and forest department on Monday notified the Kanhargaon Wildlife Sanctuary, which will be spread over 269 square kilometres in Chandrapur district. This takes the state’s total tally of wildlife sanctuaries to 50. The move comes eight years after the proposal was first tabled in April 2013, with officials attributing the delay largely due to resistance from the Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra, which had large-scale logging operations in the area.

HT Image

The move to notify the area as WLS under the Wildlife Protection Act (1972) — which received the chief minister’s assent during a meeting of the state wildlife board in December 2020 — will enhance protection for the area’s tiger population (20 tigers including cubs), and also give legal sanctity to this key wildlife habitat falling in the tiger corridor between Tadoba tiger reserve in Chandrapur and the Kawal wildlife sanctuary in Telangana’s Mancherial district.

“The tiger population in Chandrapur has grown considerably over the last 10 odd years, and the area which has now been notified is a known tiger breeding area/ corridor that facilitates dispersal of the population from one protected area to another, between Tadoba and Kawal,” said state wildlife board member Kishor Rithe.

The benefits of this move, Rithe said, would not only help to reduce human-tiger conflict in the region (which has seen over 150 human deaths due to tiger conflict in the last 13 years), but will also give an impetus to wildlife tourism and education measures. “There is a chance now to provide gainful employment to members of the local community, but also generate revenue for the state,” Rithe added.

Of the 269 sq. kms, which have been notified on April 5, about 18 sq. kms. come under the Central Chanda forest division, while 251 sq. km. comes under the control of the Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra, which will no longer be allowed to harvest timber in the area. Instead, officials said, the state government would compensate the FDCM, which has sought allocation of alternate 250 sq kms of productive forest land. The FDCM has also sought employment for van majdoors as part of the Widlife Sanctuary.

The area, which Rithe said is one of the last remaining tracts of primary forest in Maharashtra, boasts a rich biodiversity, including leopards, sloth bears, wild boar, wild dogs, jackals and gaur. “It is all the more important to bring the area under protection because it is a pristine forest. Even though a the forest area has been affected due to commercial forestry and timber extraction by the FDCM,we still have natural old trees and natural forest composition, which you rarely find in other parts of the state,” he said.