Road mishap kills bear near Navegaon

Vijay Pinjarkar, TNN | May 9, 2013
NAGPUR: With National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) reluctant to take wildlife protection measures while widening NH-6, a speeding vehicle knocked dead an adult sloth bear close to Shashikiran hills near Dongargaon early Wednesday morning.

"The spot where the bear was crushed falls in Sadak Arjuni range and borders Navegaon wildlife sanctuary. It is single road and a corridor patch. I suspect the animal must be moving towards Navegaon when it was hit," said S V Ramarao, deputy conservator of forests (DyCF), Gondia. Wild animals dying in road hits has become common on NH6, which has been widened from two lanes to four lanes. However, there is not a single patch where NHAI has taken mitigation measures.

On patches between Sakoli and Deori, Wildlife Institute of India ( WII), Dehradun, has suggested mitigation measures like constructing underpasses but this is not acceptable to NHAI, leading to accidents. On January 28, a honey badger (chandi aswal), a rare animal, was knocked dead at the same spot. The Supreme Court has already taken serious view of high mortality of wildlife on roads passing around protected areas (PAs) due to lack of mitigation measures. NHAI is yet to wake up.

Ramarao said the mishap occurred in the wee hours. There is a blind turn at the spot and the speeding vehicle must have hit the bear when it suddenly came out of the bushes to cross the road. The carcass was shifted the Dongargaon forest depot where a post-mortem was performed. Sawan Bahekar, honorary district wildlife warden of Gondia, demanded signboards at vulnerable spots and speed restrictions. "How many more wild animals will keep dying like this," he asked.

Initially officials felt it might be case of poaching but Ramarao said the bear died due to severe internal injuries. The head of the animal was crushed completely and it died on the spot.

Death Dance On NH6

January 7, 2011: A leopard died after being hit by a vehicle near Talegaon ghat under Wardha forest division

May 15, 2011: A full grown leopard knocked dead near Baghnadi between Deori and Rajnandgaon by an unidentified speeding vehicle

Sept 18, 2011: A sambar knocked dead in Duggipar beat under Sadak Arjuni range in Kohmara in Navegaon-Nagzira corridor

On Nov 23, 2011: A full grown leopard knocked dead in the evening near Bazargaon paper mill near Nagpur in Kalmeshwar forest range

Dec 22, 2011: An adult leopard died in road hit near Dongargaon

Jan 6, 2013: A jungle cat found dead near Hardoli, 35km from Nagpur on Amravati Road. The carnivore was hit on its head and died due to excessive bleeding

Jan 28, 2013: A honey badger knocked dead near Dongargaon of Sadak Arjuni forest range in Gondia

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Nagpur/Road-mishap-kills-bear-near-Navegaon/articleshow/19959473.cms

Unruly nilgais on dangerous bull run

Shobha John, TNN | Apr 20, 2013

Nilgais come under Schedule III of the Wildlife Act.

NEW DELHI: Gujarat is still smarting over the loss of some of its Gir lions to Madhya Pradesh. But many states would gladly give away an animal whose burgeoning population is causing havoc in farms, airforce stations and on national highways — the blue bull or nilgai. So fraught has this man-animal face-off become that Bihar issued an order on February 19 for culling these animals in a restricted way.

For Rahul Gupta (name changed), a nilgai will always evoke trepidation. Recently, as he was driving down a national highway at 9 pm, a blue apparition suddenly jumped in front of his luxurious car. It was a nilgai -- big, agile and just as bewildered as Gupta. The car crashed, the bonnet crumpled. Fortunately, the airbags saved him. "But it will cost me Rs 22 lakh to repair the car," says Gupta. He was lucky. Last April, a toddler and his father were killed when their Santro turned turtle on ramming into a nilgai in Gurgaon.

Nilgais also raid farms and damage crops. "Poor farmers existing on subsistence agriculture can ill-afford this and are increasingly hostile to them," says Dr N P S Chauhan, head of population management, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. "After introduction of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), many wildlife species, including nilgais, have increased considerably outside protected areas," says Chauhan in a research paper. This leaves crops as the only food available to them, says Bittu Sahgal, editor, Sanctuary Asia. Also, the decrease in predators -- wolves and jackals -- has further increased their numbers.

Nilgais, incidentally, come under Schedule III of the Wildlife Act. "Basically, this means that if a state government, under political pressure, wants to issue permissions to shoot nilgais, they can," says Sahgal. Constant skirmishes led the chief wildlife warden in Bihar to constitute a committee to issue licenses to kill them in a restricted way. The February 19 order states that the license to use stipulated firearms for culling will be valid for four weeks, that Rs 500 will be paid for each killing and Rs 1,000 for disposal of the body. Culling has also taken place in other states such as HP, MP and Gujarat.

Air force stations, too, are frequented by nilgai herds and use choppers to scare them away. Former group captain Pankaj Chopra says, "When I was the chief commanding officer of a forward station, I saw a nilgai and a MiG colliding on the runway. The plane turned turtle. We had a tough time extricating the pilot. The plane was written off." In 2008, an AI flight hit a nilgai at Chakeri airport in Kanpur. All escaped unhurt.

So what's the solution? "One should restore ecosystems so that the predator-prey ratio gets balanced," says Sahgal. "In the US where virtually every predator has been shot, humans have taken on this role and are turning the guns on animals." How about fencing highways or relocating them like the Gir lions, asks Gupta.

Easier said than done.

(Inputs from Madan Kumar in Patna)
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Unruly-nilgais-on-dangerous-bull-run/articleshow/19642514.cms

Environment Ministry rejects proposal to expand Bhopal-Nagpur highway

PTI | 7 Apr, 2013
NEW DELHI: The Environment Ministry has rejected a National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) proposal seeking expansion of a road connecting Bhopal and Nagpur that cuts through a proposed tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh.

The Standing Committee of National Board for Wildlife, chaired by Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan, has accepted an expert panel report which said that four-laning of NH-69 within the Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary "cannot be permitted currently" as tigers and other wild animals will be "more vulnerable" to be killed on the road, MoEF sources said.

The decision came amid tussle between the two sides over highway projects through forest areas.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had earlier endorsed the report prepared by NBWL Standing Committee Member Prerna Singh Bindra and NTCA official Rajeev Sharma.

The NHAI had sought denotification of 58.5 hectares of forest land in Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary to upgrade the two-lane NH-69 to four lanes to facilitate "higher, faster and night time" traffic between the cities of Bhopal and Nagpur.

Rejecting the proposal, the report had said the impact of roads went beyond wild animals ending up as road kill.

"Forests on the sides of the roads become heavily degraded and over time, their usage by wild animals diminishes. Besides, they allow access into wilderness areas, bringing with them ancillary development. Further expansion of the road will only accelerate these," it had said.

National Highway-69 goes through 44.6 km of forest area including 12.44 km through Ratapani sanctuary which is very close to Bhopal.

Admitting that the condition of the road is "very bad", the report has said the best alternative was to repair the road and strengthen it.

The sanctuary has been proposed as a tiger reserve and accorded in-principle approval by the NTCA. The last census indicates presence of 16 tigers in the sanctuary.

The team headed by Bindra has recommended that notifying of Ratapani Tiger Reserve be expedited for more focused wildlife management and conservation of wild cat.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/infrastructure/environment-ministry-rejects-proposal-to-expand-bhopal-nagpur-highway/articleshow/19425279.cms

Forest panels to be reconstituted

Forest minister K.B. Ganesh Kumar has said the constituency level forest committees in the district will be reconstituted to solve the issues related to forests and wildlife.

Speaking to mediapersons here on Tuesday, after attending a meeting of the representatives of political parties, three-tier local administrative bodies, and senior officials of Forest and Revenue Departments, Mr. Ganesh Kumar said the committees would discuss all the welfare activities and protection measures related to the two forest divisions and Wayanad Wild life Sanctuary (WWS) in the district.

The Minister’s meeting with the officials was to form a consensus on various issues relating to forests and wildlife such as a ban on parking of vehicles along National Highway 212 inside the WWS during night and demarcation of the ecological sensitive zone around the sanctuary.

The MLAs of each constituency would be the chairmen of the committees and Divisional Forest Officers or Warden the conveners. Presidents of local bodieswould be the members.


Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/forest-panels-to-be-reconstituted/article4359498.ece

National Highway To Doom

BAHAR DUTT

No, Mr PM. Our green laws are not impeding the country’s development

AT A recent Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lamented that green laws are the new ‘Licence Raj’. This is not the first time the PM has expressed this view; in 2011, he emphasised at a public forum that “saving the environment could not be at the cost of development”.

In 2008, he laid the foundation stone for the 3,000 MW Dibang hydropower project in Arunachal Pradesh, even though it had yet to get the green clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). The clearance was in limbo because the public hearing had not been held as mandated under the Environment (Protection) Act (EPA).

The PM’s attitude towards green laws seems to propagate a myth that such laws are impeding development. For every three projects rejected by the MoEF’S statutory bodies, 97 are cleared. And those that are rejected can apply again. Also, more than 100 projects on 9,000 hectares of forestland have been cleared by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) in the past three months, which means we are losing forestland at the rate of 100 hectares per day.

Two coal mining projects were cleared in Odisha despite glaring violations found by the FAC. In the September meeting of the FAC, (Source: EIA Resource and Response Centre, New Delhi) more than 93 percent projects didn’t show any history of compensatory afforestation, yet they were considered. Worse, more than 90 percent projects were approved, even though the nodal forest officer, who has to give detailed comments on why the project should be given a go-ahead on prime forests, had either just signed or left the columns blank. Even areas rich in biodiversity are not spared, such as the Gola corridor, which is crucial for elephants and tigers in Uttarakhand.

The NHAI recently threatened to sue the MoEF over delays in green clearances. Here again, one needs to look at the ministry data. If you look at three highway projects that came up for discussion with the FAC, two were cleared and one sent back for additional information.

Take the example of Yamunotri-Saharanpur Highway. More than 1 lakh trees are facing the axe, and the application makes no mention of the damage to wildlife or biodiversity, yet it was cleared. Worse still, the project is based in UP, but a certificate from the collector of Mahasamand (a district in Chhattisgarh) was provided! Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan has made it amply clear that clearances are being held up because of incomplete application forms or false information. But these statistics seem to escape the prime minister’s eye.

In his 2011 Independence Day speech, the PM took credit for setting up the National Green Tribunal, but it faces many hurdles. Two years later, the regional benches are yet to be set up; there is no proper courtroom; many members have quit due to lack of accommodation; and a chairperson was appointed only after the SC forced the Centre’s hand.

Green laws are not ‘Licence Raj’, Mr PM. They were introduced by your government, the Constitution and Parliament. The development brigade may show you the example of China. China’s breakneck speed of development has overshadowed the environmental disasters facing the country. Sixteen of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. More than 70 percent of China’s rivers, lakes and streams are heavily polluted. Every year, 6,000 square miles of grasslands and forests are lost to desertification and over 300 species are endangered or threatened. Is this the development model we want?

Of course, we want to develop. But not at the cost of our right to fresh air and clean water or our wildlife. That’s what the EPA and the Forest Conservation Act ensure. They protect our rights to have access to clean air; they ensure the industries you give the licence to operate do so with some system of checks and balances. You would do well by supporting your environment minister, who has a tough job of balancing the environment and development needs, while ensuring these checks are in place. And the industry could do well by respecting the law of the land instead of being a constant crybaby.

Bahar Dutt is Environment Editor, CNN-IBN
letters@tehelka.com

Source: http://tehelka.com/national-highway-to-doom/

Panel backs NHAI: ‘MoEF can’t insist on Forest Act’

Things may have come to a boil between the National Highways Authority of India and the Ministry of Environment and Forests over green clearances to road projects last week with the former going to court in protest, but they have been simmering for long enough. The NHAI has for long been demanding exemption from the Forest Rights Act for its road projects and now derives strength from the recent recommendations made by a Committee of Secretaries on the issue.

Chaired by the Law Secretary, this committee — specifically examining the NHAI’s demand vis-a-vis the ministry’s contentions — gave an opinion in favour of the NHAI. The committee has opined that the FRA may not be insisted upon as far as road projects are concerned. Sources said the MoEF wrote to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs for its views on the committee’s opinion. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs, in turn, passed the buck to the MoEF arguing that since the guidelines to FRA were issues by the latter, any changes will have to be effected by the same ministry.

The FRA to which the MoEF issued guidelines in 2009 require public hearings and consent of related gram sabhas before forest clearance for a project can be given. The process, a time consuming one, is said to delay projects. Under pressure over delays, the MoEF is of a view that forest clearance should not be delinked from environmental clearance.

The MoEF argues that it has already been sympathetic to the NHAI’s demands by relaxing its guidelines for linear projects, facilitating phased processing of these proposals, provided feasible alternate alignments are submitted for stretches in forest areas.

The Forest Ministry contends that its notifications, dated March 2012 and September 2011, on re-diversion of forest land for non forest purposes facilitated linear projects.

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has been at loggerheads with the MoEF over alleged delays in granting of clearance and blames it for slow progress in projects worth over Rs 2,000 crore. They had even sought the PMO’s intervention to expedite linear projects like roads, railway tracks and transmission lines awaiting green clearances.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Panel-backs-NHAI---MoEF-can-t-insist-on-Forest-Act-/1059309/0