Its not just poachers now but a degrading ecology, which has added to the misery of tigers.
The falling green cover in and around 28 tiger reserves is a new danger being faced by the tiger population.
HT Image
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
The report, 'Forest Cover in Tiger Reserves in India 2006' released on Monday by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shows a fall in green cover by 94 square kilometres within the reserves, in a five-year period between 1997-2002.
While forest cover has increased marginally in five tiger reserves including Jim Corbett, there has been a major depletion in 11 reserves, the report says.
Nameri Tiger Reserve had maximum forest destruction with fall in forest cover by 45 square kilometres. In Buxa, the green cover went down by 22 square kilometres of the total forest area of 643 square kilometres. Forest loss has also been noticed in Manas, Indravati and in Naxal affected areas of Chattisgarh and Dampa Tiger reserves. "The decrease can be attributed to illicit felling of trees leading to encroachments or human settlements close to the reserves," the report says.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
The brunt of human onslaught and natural disasters on the forest was borne mostly by moderately dense forest, that fell by 251 square kilometres.
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
The brunt of human onslaught and natural disasters on the forest was borne mostly by moderately dense forest, that fell by 251 square kilometres.
{{/usCountry}}
Outside the reserves, where the tigers normally wander and where an increase in population is noticed, the situation is even worse. The report says forest cover has fallen by 124 square kilometres in the five-year period.
Only two reserves showed improvements in the forest cover. In 21 reserves, the tree zone fell while it remained unchanged in case of five tiger reserves. "We conducted a satellite based mapping of the reserves and found that lack of buffer zone was a cause for increasing threat to tigers," an official in Ministry of Environment and Forest said. Officials however, blamed the state governments for the depleting forest cover. "We have been giving money under Project Tiger to different states for improving the buffer zone. Now, it appears that the money has not been utilised properly," 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.
