Ministries on opposite side of fence over tigers, tribals

Tiger versus human conflict has brought two central government ministries in a confrontation mode, Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Nov 16, 2012, 02:38:09 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Tiger versus human conflict has brought two central government ministries in a confrontation mode.

The tribal affairs ministry has rejected the environment ministry's decision to declare 800 to 1,200 square km of wildlife areas in 41 tiger reserves as inviolate (free from any interference) for the big cat without settling the rights of locals.

The environment ministry had provided for this inviolate space as a mandatory condition to regulate tourism in tiger reserves. The rules were notified despite a dissent note of the two members of the rules drafting committee on the ground that it did not violate the “spirit” of the Forest Rights Act.

Tribal Affairs minister V Kishore Chandra Deo thinks differently.

“The inviolate space for wildlife should be determined on a case-to-case basis

taking into account local factors envisaged in the Forest Rights Act, instead of having a universal criterion of 800-1,200 sq kms,” Deo said in a letter to environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan.

Deo's fear is that through declaration of a universal inviolate area, the National

Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) aims to bring buffer areas within the ambit of inviolate areas, thereby resulting curtailment of rights of local communities.

The minister has asked Natarajan to revise the guidelines to state that relocation of villages will only take place in criticial wildlife habitats and on voluntary basis after settlement of rights.

He also wants the relocation package of R10 lakh per family without any rehabilitation process for villagers inside core areas to be scrapped because poor forest dwellers can be coerced to accept this “dangerous” option.

In his view, the package should include both money and adequate relocation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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