India's richest Tirupati Temple is now inside the country's third biggest biosphere reserve - a highly protected zone home to rare endangered plants and animals. Chetan Chauhan reports. Protected zone
India's richest Tirupati Temple is now inside the country's third biggest biosphere reserve - a highly protected zone home to rare endangered plants and animals.
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The Environment Ministry on Wednesday decided to declare the 8,000 square kms area in Seshachalam hills, which falls in Chittoor and Kadapa districts of southern Andhra Pradesh, as biosphere reserve.
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"The Biosphere Reserve will comprise three zones, the Core zone, the Buffer zone and the Transition zone spread over 4755.997 sq km in the Chittoor and the Kadapa districts of Southern Andhra Pradesh," said the ministry's note of approval.
The core zone comprises of 750.589 sq km in the Rajampet forest division of Kadapa district, Tirupathi forest division of Chittoor district, Sri Venkateswara National Park, areas contiguous to the National Park and areas rich in bio-diversity which would enjoy legal protection.
The core zones will be free from human habitation and will allow research activity and macro management practices in addition to acting as demonstration sites for value addition to the resources in buffer areas.
The Buffer zone (outside the core zone) spreads over 1865 sq km - covering Reserve Forest lands and parts of Sri Venkateswara wildlife sanctuary. An area of 2140 sq. kms falling within 5 km radius from the outer boundary of the Buffer zone is designated as the Transition zone.
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Some of Andhra Pradesh's most beautiful areas fall under the reserve like the famous Talakona, Gundalakona and the Gunjana falls and Tirumala, the abode of Lord Venkateshwara located on seven hills known as the Seshachalam hills.
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Some of Andhra Pradesh's most beautiful areas fall under the reserve like the famous Talakona, Gundalakona and the Gunjana falls and Tirumala, the abode of Lord Venkateshwara located on seven hills known as the Seshachalam hills.
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These hill ranges are also home to endangered animals like the Slender Loris, the Indian Giant Squirrel, the Mouse Deer and the Golden Gecko, a ministry official said.
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.
