After Mhadei find, tiger expert on big cat trail in Cotigao

TNN | May 8, 2013
PANAJI: A team of experts led by noted conservation zoologist Kota Ullas Karanth has commenced work on a comprehensive tiger survey in the Cotigao wildlife sanctuary and other protected areas after the recent success of the camera trap method.

The Goa government had recently cleared the decks for an intensive survey and within a few weeks of the go-ahead the forest department had captured a tigress on camera within the limits of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary.

The extensive study, which will extend for four years till 2017, will rely on refined protocols such as camera trap findings to assess the presence of the big cat and the prey base in Goa's forests.

"He (Karanth) has given a list of 45 spots in different sanctuaries to lay camera traps and line transects for the survey," said Richard D'Souza, principal chief conservator of forests. While the expert will conduct the study, the forest department will also independently do its work, especially in Mhadei.

The protected areas of Cotigao, Neturlim, Molem national park, Bondla and Mhadei form a contiguous corridor with tiger areas in Karnataka.

The tiger estimation done by the forest department in the past has shown the presence of tigers. Three had been counted in 1993, five in 1997 and 2002.

Though the forest department had been in a denial syndrome for a long time earlier, things have changed recently with significant findings.

"This vindicates the stand taken by some officials and animal lovers who have claimed the big cats' existence here for more than a decade and a half," a source said.

Referring to the work being done in the protected areas over the last few days D'Souza said, "This is the actual groundwork for the survey."

Goa's protected areas have been identified as a tiger conservation unit (TCU) along with the contiguous forest areas of Karnataka and Maharashtra in a study by international organizations.

The World Wide Fund International, US Fish and Wildlife Services and Wild Life Conservation Society, New York, in a study had categorized the Western Ghats as the second best tiger habitat in India after the Sunderbans in West Bengal.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/After-Mhadei-find-tiger-expert-on-big-cat-trail-in-Cotigao/articleshow/19942067.cms

Kerala forests now have nearly 100 tigers

IANS | May 7, 2013

The monitoring of the tigers that is currently on at the
Periyar tiger reserve is being done with the
use of cameras.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The number of tigers in Kerala's forests has gone up to 100 due to excellent protection measures for the wildlife, an official said Tuesday.

"The tigers in our forests were around 70 and now the number has gone up to around 100, and similar is the increase for other wild animals also," V Gopinath, principal chief conservator of forests in Kerala, said.

The increase in the tiger numbers has been particularly noted because forests in the Western Ghats are continguous and spread into states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. And given the vast expanse of these forests, it was but natural that wildlife often move from one region to another in search of food and habitation.

"The increase in the tiger numbers has been because of the contiguous nature of forests. Another aspect in the increasing numbers is the excellent protection given to the wildlife using funds from both the centre and states," added Gopinath.

The monitoring of the tigers that is currently on at the Periyar tiger reserve is being done with the use of cameras.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Kerala-forests-now-have-nearly-100-tigers/articleshow/19928046.cms

Buying land to return it to nature

Ananda Banerjee,  Live Mint

Some government, non-government bodies, individuals are trying to push back against relentless development

WTI purchased 26 acres of land along the Thirunelli-Kudrakote corridor in Kerala to restore the degraded habitat
and protect wildlife. Photo courtesy WTI

Given the relentless pace at which wildlife habitat is being devoured by the march of development, some government agencies, non-governmental organizations and individuals have been trying to push back—by buying land and letting nature reclaim it.

The past decade has seen a conscious effort to secure wildlife habitats to protect forests.
A recent exercise involved the purchase of 26 acres along the Thirunelli-Kudrakote wildlife corridor in the Wayanad district of Kerala that comes under the watch of the non-profit Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). In the past few months, camera traps have recorded three tigers crossing the corridor.

The land was purchased by WTI with the help of the World Land Trust (WTL), IUCN-Netherlands and the Elephant Family to restore the degraded habitat and protect wildlife along the stretch. The 38 families in four villages in the area were relocated to an alternative site. The exercise cost in excess of Rs.2 crore.

Corridors between two sanctuaries (protected areas) are absolutely critical to wildlife for species dispersal, allowing exchange of individuals between populations and preventing inbreeding, among other ecosystem linkages. The land bought by WTI is gradually being handed over to the Kerala forest department for incorporating it as part of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.

The Thirunelli-Kudrakote corridor connects the Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary (18,100 hectares) bordering Karnataka and Kerala, with the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (11,000 hectares) and the Wayanad north division (21,400 hectares) in Kerala. The stretch is part of a larger swathe of about 12,000 sq. km, with an elephant population of more than 6,300. This by itself constitutes one-third of India’s endangered Asian elephant population, which keeps moving up and down the corridor for food and social bonding.

Buying land back from the villagers has not only secured the corridor for the safe passage of elephants and other wild animals, but also helped reduce human-elephant conflict in the area.

“The people are able to harvest and are spared sleepless nights guarding their crop and houses from elephants,” said Sandeep Tiwari, deputy director, WTI. “The initiatives have also helped in improving the lives of these families as they now have access to education and healthcare centres and opening up employment opportunities.”

How much forest is cut down for development needs? The government’s 11th Plan (2007-12) was particularly severe in terms of loss of forest cover, according to a report by research and activist group Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Land was diverted for development projects with scant consideration for wildlife, water and rural communities, it said.

The CSE study looked at five key sectors—thermal power, hydropower, cement, iron and steel, and mining—that have impacted forests. The report said 8,284 projects were granted forest clearance and 197,907.61 hectares of forest land diverted between 2007 and 2011. In the past three decades, 815,534.48 hectares of forest have been cleared for 23,404 projects (see graphic).

India is urbanizing rapidly, and there is heavy pressure on land and natural resources as the population increases. According to a study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), the number of towns has grown from 5,161 to 7,935 in the decade ended 2011, and this may near 10,000 by 2030. Demographic projections show that by then, the proportion of people in urban areas may swell to more than double that in rural areas.

The loss of forest habitat is a reason for declining wildlife populations across the planet. In this scenario, buying land to secure wildlife habitats has given conservationists a method to arrest habitat loss. As renowned conservation biologist Richard Cowling said: “Conservation is 10% science and 90% negotiation.”

Acquiring land for conservation is not new. In the book Buying Nature, authors Sally K. Fairfax, Lauren Gwin, Mary Ann King, Leigh Raymond and Laura A. Watt document the process of land acquisition as a conservation strategy in the US in the last 200 years.
One such current initiative is the American Prairie Reserve, a collaborative effort involving conservation agencies such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the National Geographic Society that aims to acquire land in north-eastern Montana in the US to create a seamless protected area.

“Imagine a grassland reserve of three million acres—a wildlife spectacle that rivals the Serengeti and an awe-inspiring place for you and your children to explore,” says the American Prairie Reserve website.

“Imagine helping to build a national treasure.”

Eric Dinerstein, lead scientist and vice-president, conservation science, WWF, said: “By 2022, I dream of 10,000 bison thundering across 1,000,000 acres with wolves in hot pursuit.”

Back in India, between 2001 and 2003, WTI managed to secure the Kollegal or Edayarhalli–Doddasampige elephant corridor for about Rs.70 lakh. The elephant range to the east of the Biligirirangan Hills had been divided by a long strip of cultivation that cut off the Biligiriranga Swamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary from the forests of the Kollegal division. A narrow corridor now exists between the villages of Kurubaradoddi and Aandipalya along the Kollegal-Satyamangalam highway.

WTI acquired 25.4 acres for the corridor in Aandipalya village from 17 landowners. The land has been transferred to the Karnataka forest department through a formal memorandum of understanding (MoU) to maintain it as an elephant corridor, ensuring connectivity and incorporating it as part of the BRT Wildlife Sanctuary. This is the first ever privately bought corridor to be added to a protected areas in Asia.

In the North-East, with financial support from WLT, which pioneered the buy-an-acre concept of acquiring land for conservation, WTI is working with the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC), the Meghalaya state forest department and the local community to secure wildlife corridors and the restore wildlife habitat.

As much as “4,150 acres have been secured with notification of 10 Village Reserve Forests,” said WTI’s Tiwari.

WWF-India is keen to follow the model, but rocketing land prices are a stumbling block.
“We are looking across various landscapes to acquire land and hand it over to the forest department,” said Ravi Singh, WWF-India’s secretary general. “Whatever we are doing to get forest land back is being done discreetly as any overt signs may send the land prices spiralling.”

Land for Project Tiger

Project Tiger, the government’s flagship conservation programme that turns 40 years old this month, has secured 2% of the country’s geographical area as tiger reserves. The area under the project gets the highest legal protection under the Wildlife Act. The central government’s programme not only secures the existence of the tiger, but also a gamut of species that thrives in those areas.

Launched in April 1973 in nine reserves across an area of approximately 14,000 sq. km, the project has expanded, especially in the past decade, from 25 tiger reserves in 2001 to 43 now. Project Tiger has secured an area of 66,274.68 sq. km across 17 states in the country.

Under the project, the central government provides 100% monetary assistance to states for strengthening protection; creating basic infrastructure for management; habitat development and restoration; water resources; eco-development programmes; village relocation; use of information technology (IT) in crime detection; monitoring of tiger populations; and carrying out estimations of tigers, co-predators and prey animals among others.

Private forests

Apart from government and non-government initiatives, a few individuals too have acquired land adjoining wildlife sanctuaries across the country and then allowed natural forest regrowth to take place as part of conservation. Most of them refused to speak on record.

One of them is Romulus Whitaker, popularly known as the Snake Man of India for his specialization in reptiles.

Whitaker set up the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS) in Karnataka as a field station for the study of rainforest ecology in 2005 on a four-acre plot surrounded by forests. The land was bought with money willed to him by his mother, Doris Norden Chattopadhyaya.

Agumbe is a village in the Western Ghats in Shimoga where, in 1971, Whitaker spotted his first king cobra. He’d always wanted to set up a research base in the area.

In 2005, Whitaker also received the prestigious Whitley Fund for Nature award, which helped him set up basic infrastructure and convert an old farmhouse into a full-fledged forest research base.
“During the setting up of the field station, we had visits from leopards as well as a couple of king cobras, which to us ‘certified’ the place as the ideal field station,” he recalled.
Today, ARRS has 10 acres of land thanks to additional acquisitions and recently came under the administration of the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust, which Whitaker set up in the 1980s to study reptiles.

Wildernest, in the Chorla Ghat area of Goa, has secured 450 acres and is perhaps one of the largest private reserve corridors for forests across two sanctuaries as well as two states—between the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary in Goa and Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka. The Wildernest team runs two independent research stations like ARRS, one in the Chorla ghats and the other at Kuveshi near Castle Rock.

The Sai Sanctuary located in the Western Ghats is another example of a private forest reserve. It’s home to large carnivores such as tigers and leopards, along with elephants and 300 species of birds.

From the initial purchase of 55 acres of private forested lands in 1991, the reserve managed by the Sai Sanctuary Trust has grown to more than 300 acres and today offers a buffer to the National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries along its borders—Brahmagiri, Nagarhole and Bandipur.

Securing land, especially degraded forests and leaving them for nature to reclaim, is a sustainable model to restore forests and protect biodiversity. But it’s an uphill task with land costs surging the moment there’s a hint of demand. Also, in a burgeoning economy in which development is the buzzword, it can be a struggle to find the right balance between conservation and economic growth imperatives.

Source: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/df1ep278rRHJ7JaeI6ohrL/Buying-land-to-return-it-to-nature.html

Two new genera of tree frogs found in Western Ghats

• They are named after two remarkable personalities associated with this landscape
• Erratic rainfall during recent years likely to affect breeding patterns of these frogs
• They were found in highly threatened fresh water swamp eco systems

Two new genera of frogs were discovered by a team of independent researchers, led by Anil Zachariah and Robin Kurian Abraham, during their recent exploration in the Western Ghats.

The discovery, published in the latest issue of International Taxonomic Journal Zootaxa , is a joint effort by the team which comprised B .R. Ansil; Arun Zachariah of the Wild Life Disease Research Lab in Wayanad; and Robert Alexander Pyron, Assistant professor, Department of Biological Sciences of the George Washington University, U.S.

Biodiversity hot spot

The discovery once again proves that the Western Ghats, a biodiversity hot spot and Unesco world Heritage site, is a treasure trove of many amphibians.

It was found that the newly found genera belonged to tree frog family ‘Rhacophoridae.’ The frogs were discovered in highly threatened fresh water swamp eco systems, which are unique to the mountain range.

Mercurana myristicapalustris

The frogs discovered are named after two remarkable personalities who had an association with this landscape. One genus is named ‘Beddomixalus’ after colonel Richard Henry Beddome. He was a gifted polymath of the colonial era, who made extraordinary contributions to the understanding to the natural history of the sub-continent while serving as the Chief Conservator of Forests in the Madras Presidency. His works were the first detailed forays towards a systematic and through understanding of the amphibian diversity of the Western Ghats.

The other genus has been christened ‘Mercurana’ to commemorate Freddie Mercury, late iconic lead singer of the British rock band Queen. Mercury (his pen name) was of Indian Parsi origin and had spent major part of his childhood in India in Panchagni, located in the northern part of the mountain range, where the frog now bearing his name has been discovered.

Beddomixalus bijui 

While the ‘Beddomixalus bijui’ was found in the swamp forests of the Anamalai and high ranges of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, ‘Mercurana myristicapalustris,’ is restricted to highly fragmented and threatened low land ‘Myristica’ swamp forests in the foothills of the Agastyamalai hills in Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts.

This distinctive forest type is dominated by wild relatives of nutmeg that thrive in waterlogged soil, and hence the name ‘Myristica’ swamp. But much of these types of forests have been lost, having been converted to raise cash crops such as rubber and oil palms, Dr. Anil Zachariah says.

Moreover, episodes of erratic rainfall over recent years are likely to affect the breeding patterns of these frogs and detailed studies are needed to explore such impacts, Mr. Abraham says.

The researchers highlight that the swamp forest and their unique biota are to be preserved. They stressed that the finding of two novel genera after more than a century of herpetological exploration in the region take the total number of tree frog genera in the Western Ghats to seven.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/two-new-genera-of-tree-frogs-found-in-western-ghats/article4628482.ece

Why thriving wildlife trade should not surprise anyone

Jay Mazoomdaar | Mar 11, 2013
The customary headlines that follow every CITES meeting were reeled out last week after a string of media releases from Bangkok on 7 March. There is global anguish over the shocking numbers — seizures amounting to 1425 dead tigers from 12 tiger range countries between 2000 and 2012, or, more than two killing a week.

The Indian media highlighted the five illegal trading hotspots in Delhi, Kolkata (Sunderbans), Ramnagar (Corbett), Balaghat (Kanha-Pench) and Sathyamangalam (the Western Ghats) which retained its notoriety even after the killing of brigand Veerappan and disbanding of his ivory hunting gang nearly a decade ago.

Since 2000, more than two tigers have been poached every week.
Pic courtesy: CITES/WWF

A spurt in tiger poaching that claimed at least 34 big cats in the first five months of 2012 continues across the country. Since mid-November, three tigers have died of electrocution in live-wire traps set by poachers in and around Bandhavgarh’s Khitoli range. Since mid-January, suspected poisoning has killed four tigers in Karnataka’s Nagarhole. Last week, a one-year-old tigress was rescued from a metal jaw-trap in Dudhwa, Uttar Pradesh, with a damaged paw.

Since 2000, more than two tigers have been poached every week. Pic courtesy: CITES/WWF
While tiger mortality usually makes big news, leopards are being taken out at such regularity that making even a guesstimate has become a challenge. Since 2010, six dozen tigers and nearly 500 leopards have fallen to poachers. That is just the official count.

Compared to big cat pelts and bones, rhino horns command a much higher price. After a lull during 1999-2006, the lucrative trade made a strong comeback in Assam. In 2012, more than 22 rhinos were poached. This year’s toll has already reached 10, prompting a shoot-at-sight order against poachers.

Annually, up to 30,000 star tortoises worth several crores of rupees are harvested in our country. An estimated 50-70 per cent of India’s otter population has been hunted for their pelts. The paintbrush industry’s demand for 8-12 quintals of hair has killed more than a million mongooses – only 10-20g hair is obtained from each — since the 1990s.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to protect wild animals with physical vigil unless we convert open forests into fenced-in zoos. Even then, a large number of wildlife will continue to roam outside. The most effective deterrence to poaching is the fear of getting caught, prosecuted and punished. But after four decades of the Wildlife (Protection) Act and a ban on hunting, how are the syndicates still so active?

There are at least three reasons. We are yet to build the capacity to adequately combat poaching; the administration is mostly in denial; and the powers that be have strong incentive to back wildlife trade.

On paper, we have created the Special Tiger Protection Force in a number of reserves. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has even introduced a high-tech thermal imagery system for round-the-clock surveillance last year and proposed to procure drones to watch over remote forest terrain.

But far from compensating for quality human resource, any sophisticated initiative depends on it for success. Yet, there is no initiative to build a motivated, trained and agile workforce and adequately incentivise it for consistent field results.

Every forest administration needs eyes and ears on the ground. Since the average bureaucrat is not a natural sleuth or an earthy man-manager, field officers should be handpicked for wildlife divisions. Every division also needs a dedicated legal cell with trained staff to ensure that cases do not fall through when rare arrests are made. But even six years after the creation of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, intelligence gathering and prosecution remains inadequate.

Unsurprisingly, the culture of denial is so deeply embedded in forest bureaucracy that most officers refuse to accept that poachers continue to be a threat in their territory. It is standard practice to play the jurisdiction card and disown animals that step out of park limits. Since officers in charge of less-protected areas neither have the resources to fight poachers nor are expected to, nobody is held accountable for poaching of, say, tigers in the Ramnagar forests adjacent to Corbett or rhinos across the road from Kaziranga.

When a suspicious carcass is found, the management tries to get away by attributing the death to anything — from food poisoning to snake bite – anything short of a suicide. Last year, an internal note of the Environment ministry pointed out that “many cases are straightaway declared as occurring due to natural causes or accidents without a detailed investigation to establish the same,” adding that “every case of tiger and leopard death would be henceforth treated as a case of poaching, unless otherwise proved beyond reasonable doubt”.

But a multi-billion dollar industry cannot bet its fortune on administrative laxity alone. So Veerappan funded political parties in two states for over a decade. Sansar Chand’s famous diary apparently had details of collusion with a number of Delhi’s political big guns. Insurgents protect trees for cover in their forest hideouts but have no qualms clearing Indravati of tigers or Manas of rhinos to fund arms deals.

During the 1980s and 1990s, when a number of prime north-east forests became inaccessible to the administration, more than 550 rhinos were poached. As the law and order condition improved in the late 90s, a shoot-at-sight regime forced an eight-year lull, particularly in Kaziranga, till the 2006 Assembly elections unleashed a cycle of “political reward killing”.

Poachers were back to claim 20 rhinos by 2007. Then again, after the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, around two dozen animals were killed till 2010. In 2011, only one rhino was poached till the Assembly elections in May. Nearly three dozen have been killed since till the Kaziranga administration finally retaliated last Wednesday gunning down two armed poachers.

While shoot-at-sight orders are necessary in places like Kaziranga to match the fire power of former militants joining the trade, this approach suits few other forests in India. Unlike Kaziranga, most of our forests house villages and opening fire at the sight of people in such areas is a recipe for disaster. Building an anti-poaching network based on field intelligence demands a lot of hard work. But there is no alternative if we are serious about protecting our wild.

Source: http://www.firstpost.com/living/why-thriving-wildlife-trade-should-not-surprise-anyone-654771.html

SC: Why not ban vehicles in forests for animal safety?

Dhananjay Mahapatra, TNN | Jan 19, 2013
NEW DELHI: Concerned by high animal mortality in traffic accidents on roads passing through thick forests, the Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to the Centre and 10 states asking why mitigating measures, including a dusk-to-dawn ban on vehicles on forest roads, be not taken immediately.

Amicus curiae Harish Salve moved the application before the court's green bench comprising Justices Aftab Alam, K S Radhakrishnan and Ranjan Gogoi. He pointed to the disturbing number of deaths because of "upgradation, widening or indiscriminate construction of new roads through areas which have thick forest and which are rich in wildlife without first putting in place mitigative measures".

Salve mentioned the high incidence of death of animals, which collide with vehicles on the 54-km stretch of NH 37 passing through Kaziranga (a world heritage site recognized by Unesco) to escape flood waters of Brahmaputra in their attempt to flee towards higher grounds of Karbi Anglong forests.

A study by the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) eight years ago suggested construction of seven underpasses and 100-150 metre long ecoduct (tunnel) through raised grounds for safe passage of animals without their coming to the road. "The MoEF and the Assam government have not yet taken any steps to implement the recommendation," Salve complained.

The amicus said the apex court had in 2009 banned heavy and commercial vehicle movement on a state highway passing through Sariska tiger reserve and a ban on all vehicular movement during the night. This order is yet to be implemented, he said.

Salve said the apex court had in November 2008 closed traffic at night on the Mysore-Mananthawadi road passing through Nagarhole national park and ordered putting speed regulating measures like rumble strips.

He said roads were being indiscriminately constructed or upgraded even in ecologically sensitive areas like national parks and sanctuaries without seeking permission from competent authorities under the Wildlife Protection Act.

"These roads, besides jeopardizing wildlife, are also exposing pristine areas having high rainfall in the evergreen forests of the Western Ghats and the Himalayas which are prone to soil and water erosion and are subjected to other adverse impacts on the flora and fauna," he said.

The application listed important roads passing through sanctuaries and national parks or areas with heavy concentration and movement of wildlife requiring putting in place site-specific mitigation measures to prevent and reduce wild animal deaths from vehicular accidents.

On the benefit of mitigation measures, Salve gave the example of Zanzibar (East Africa), where installation of just four speed-breakers helped reduce mortality of the threatened red colobus monkeys by 85% in the first nine months.

Closure of roads from dusk to dawn, or from 9 pm till 7 am, has become necessary, Salve said. "This has been done between Mysore and Ooty, which passes through two protected areas with very high concentration of wildlife - the Bandipur national park in Karnataka and Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary across the border in Tamil Nadu," he added.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/SC-Why-not-ban-vehicles-in-forests-for-animal-safety/articleshow/18081130.cms

Predator population up in tiger reserve

P. SUDHAKAR

Time to strengthen its prey base

Herbivore: A small herd of Nilgiri thar found at
Uppur Kothayar in Western Ghats in Tirunelveli district.

The recent wildlife census conducted at Kalakkad – Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) shows a significant increase in the predator population and signals the need to strengthen its prey base or herbivore population.

When the survey team crossed Rettaikaradu area in Thirukkurunkudi range, the members saw a panther, a ‘shy animal’, taking rest under a shade and another team, which was trekking near Maanjolai above Manimuthar dam, saw a panther standing on a rock at a distance.

The enumeration team that was moving around Kadayam range was the most fortunate as it happened to see a tiger.

“This time the volunteers involved in the census were able to see a number of panthers, which shows that the predator’s population has increased significantly. We firmly believe that the tiger population should also have gone up as we’ve got interesting and highly encouraging findings in certain areas of KMTR,” said K. Sekar, Deputy Director, Kalakkad – Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve’s Kalakkad Division.

Though KMTR has a sizable population of Indian Gaur, sambar and spotted deer, the most preferred prey for tiger and panther, ecologists here feel that the existing prey base should be strengthened further.

When the panther population increased in the Tirupathi hills, forest officials said that steps were taken for strengthening the herbivore base, mainly the deer population.

They argued that similar steps could be taken here too by shifting hundreds of spotted deer, now struggling to find adequate food and shelter at Gangaikondan, to Mundanthurai area of KMTR.

“Since these animals (at Gangaikondan) often face a serious threat from speeding vehicles and stray dogs, and rarely from poachers, they can be shifted to the KMTR where they can easily find adequate food and shelter,” said a zoologist here.

Forest officials say that the spotted deer of Gangaikondan could be transported to KMTR in camouflaged vehicles after tranquilizing them to strengthen the predators’ prey base.

“We have an adequate number of officials, who are well-trained in tranquilizing and transporting the sedated animals in disguised vehicles to Western Ghats during the night. If the government approves this proposal, we can expect an improved ecosystem in KMTR in future,” said a senior forest official.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/predator-population-up-in-tiger-reserve/article4413646.ece

Winged wonders spotted in Kaiga skies

DC | Gururaj paniyadi

Bird watchers observing the winged beauties near Kaiga.

Karwar: Twenty species of birds which were not seen earlier in this part of the Western Ghats have been spotted near Kaiga by bird watchers and birding enthusiasts.

This observation was made during the recently held ‘Kaiga Bird Marathon- 2013.’ Kaiga Generating Station (KGS) has been organizing “Kaiga Bird Marathon,” an annual birding event since 2011 under the aegis of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited with the aim of identifying bird species around Kaiga Generating Stations and Kaiga town.

One hundred and twenty four bird watchers including Professional Birders from NKBN (North Karnataka Birders Network) lead by President Prof Samad Kottur and students from Forestry College, Sirsi took part in the “Kaiga Bird Marathon-2013” organised last week.

The area in and around Kaiga was divided into six transects. Each team had to travel through their allotted transect of about 6-7 km and record all sightings of aquatic, wetland, grassland, raptor and land birds. A total distance of about 42 kms was covered during the event around Kaiga.

This year’s bird marathon alone identified 162 species of birds of which 20 species are those not spotted so far in this part of Western Ghats. “These 20 species might have been living in this forest earlier too. They were not seen during the last two Marathons but were spotted this year,” Prof. Samad told Deccan Chronicle.

The 20 new varieties  include Nilgiri Flowerpecker, Crested Goshawk, Rufous-bellied Eagle, Brown Fish Owl, Blyth's Starling, Crested Treeswift, Clamorous Reed Warbler, Peregrine Falcon, Besra and Oriental Honey Buzzard.

Source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130123/news-current-affairs/article/winged-wonders-spotted-kaiga-skies

Rise of the green guards

Riddhi Doshi, Hindustan Times
Yelavali is a small village with a population of 80 in the foothills of the Sahyadris, nestled within Pune district’s Bhimashankar sanctuary.

The nearest tarred road is 2 km away. Until two years ago, the villagers depended on the forest for their livelihood, using wood for fuel, grazing their cattle on wild grass and selling medicinal herbs and wild honey for small sums that were used to buy basic necessities such as kitchen utensils and medicines.

Then, a month ago, the state government’s forest department inaugurated a lodge and camping area in the village, a project that it had been working on with the villagers and NGO Kalpavriksh for a year.

The villagers will run the outfit, earning money and helping spread awareness among the many tourists drawn here each year by the sanctuary.

The lodge has been built under the Village Eco-Development Scheme, launched by the central government in 1992 and amended for simpler implementation with more powers to people by the government of Maharashtra in December 2011.

Funds from Village Eco-Development Scheme have also been used to reduce their dependence on the forest, with solar streetlamps installed on mud paths, and water heaters and pressure cookers given to reduce the villagers’ dependence on forest resources.

“In a village where we worried about how to pay for a doctor if our children got ill, the income from the lodge — at least in the six months when there are tourists — will help us very much,” says Namdev Banare, 36.

Eventually, the forest department and Kalpavriksh will also train some of the villagers as guides, to help them earn more by taking tourists on guided walks in the jungle, and to spread further eco-awareness.

With the help of Kalpavriksh, villagers have also filed claims for community use and management rights under the Forest Right Act of 2006. This was done in 2010 after the villagers decided to use, manage and conserve their forest.

Then & now

Until two years ago, the relationship between the Yelavali villagers and the forest department was very different. There were constant clashes over illegal grazing and tree-cutting in the protected forest area.

“We lived in constant fear of being caught by the forest guards,” says Banare. “But we had no option but to continue venturing into the forest. It was our only source of fuel and income.”

Efforts to explain why it was important for the villagers to reduce their dependence on the forest also failed, since there were no alternatives available to the villagers.

Then, Pune-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) Kalpavriksh started working to mobilise the villagers towards self-governance and conservation, explaining their rights and responsibilities. The NGO helped the villagers to push the state government to implement the Centre’s village eco-development scheme, to offer the villagers alternative means of making a living.

Yelavali was included in this scheme in 2011, and Rs. 10 lakh allocated for the lodge, camping ground and training programmes. “Recent initiatives have completely changed the way the villagers treat the forest department. There is healthy dialogue and discussion now,” says MK Rao, chief conservator of forests, Pune wildlife circle.

Green wave

In three other villages nearby, similar initiatives have been launched to help villagers earn a living sustainably through bee farms and eco-tourism.

And it isn’t just the Bhimashankar area. In villages around the Melghat tiger sanctuary in Amravati, the Kaas plateau UNESCO natural world heritage site in Satara and the Armori forests in Gadchiroli, similar initiatives have taken shape.

“There has been positive action in areas where sensitive officials and NGOs are working as a bridge between villagers and the forest bureaucracy,” says conservationist Ashish Kothari, chairperson of the Greenpeace India board and founder-member of Kalpavriksh.

The global trend can be traced back to the fifth IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) World Parks Congress in 2003, when more than 60 countries, including India, recognised local empowerment, rights and involvement as a powerful tool to boost conservation efforts in eco-sensitive zones.

In India, the Forest Rights Act of 2006, though some of its clauses continue to be debated, recommended the involvement of local communities as a key component of conservation efforts in all states.

With an added push from local NGOs working across the state, existing schemes such as Joint Forest Management and Village Eco-Development were invoked to create the funding for small yet potentially powerful grassroots initiatives such as the Yelavali eco-lodge and eco-guide training programme.

“Now that this realisation has occurred, such initiatives need to be implemented across many more districts in Maharashtra, for even better results,” says Vidya Athreya, wildlife biologist at the Bangalore-based non-profit trust Centre of Wildlife Studies.


Employment for villagers, from a plateau to full bloom

Six months ago, alarmed by how a growing number of tourists were treating the Kaas plateau, the Satara division of the forest department decided to involve locals from four villages — Ekiv, Ghatai, Atali and Kaas — in conservation, via the joint forest management scheme.

“We are now training villagers to monitor and manage tourists while earning a living acting as guides, garbage collectors and gatekeepers,” says NR Praveen, deputy conservator of forests for the Satara division.

The first batch of guides tackled their first batch of tourists in the 2012 flowering season, between August and November, when more than 800 types of flowers bloom on the 1,000-hectare plateau.

One of them was Ranoji Kirdat, a 50-something Kaas village resident. Kirdat and his son earned Rs. 40,000 in four months as a guide and a gatekeeper respectively — enough for a comfortable living in Kaas.“I have bought a sofa and a cupboard with some of our savings,” says Kirdat, grinning.

However, Sunil Boite, president of local NGO Drongo Environmental Movement cautions that the forest department needs to focus on scientific methods of conservation.


Birds return to nest in once-barren land

Until the early 1980s, Paivihir village was surrounded by 132 hectares of lush green forest. By the turn of the century, many of the trees were gone and the lush grass was fast disappearing too.

In mid-2011, environmental NGO Khoj began a campaign here to educate villagers about how the degradation of forests had affected their lifestyles and their earnings, and how re-forestation could help them and their local ecology.

Roping in youngsters, Khoj applied to the state government to seek forest rights for local villagers under the 2006 Forest Rights Act.

A year later, they were granted rights, enabling the villagers to make sustainable use of the area, help the state forest department monitor it and restrict access to outsiders.

Khoj then launched an afforestation drive with the youngsters, teaching them to patrol and keep watch for outsiders chopping down trees or using the land to graze cattle.

The reforestation programme — which will include planting 50,000 saplings in the next phase — has been incorporated into the national rural employment scheme, thus using central government funds to pay villagers a daily wage for their work.

Finally, the villagers will be trained by the forest department to sustainably harvest the forest produce, mainly fruit, so that they can live off the land while protecting it.

Journey to self-reliance

Most of the men in Murumbodi village have been migrant farm labourers all their lives. Their village could offer only subsistence farming.

It all started in early 2010, when local NGO Vidarbha Nature Conservation Society began educating the villagers about conservation and self-governance and encouraging them to claim their due under the Forest Rights Act. The NGO then launched a voluntary initiative, encouraging the villagers to work as guards, patrolling the protected forest area to prevent outsiders from cutting trees for firewood, grazing their cattle or burning down grass for small farms.

Community forest rights were accorded in April 2011, after which state government funds could be used to employ villagers in conservation schemes launched under the national rural employment guarantee act.

Today, there are jobs to be had here, working on water-conservation projects such as bunds and canals.

The forest department has also handed over 7,000 indigenous saplings to be planted in denuded parts of the jungle, to restore the green cover.

Thanks to improved water management, farm produce has increased. The village is now growing enough pulses and spinach to feed itself, and hopes to sell surplus to surrounding villages next year.

“People in the village are happy,” says Dilip Gode, secretary of the Vidarbha Nature Conservation Society. “Though I have my complaints about the forest department, it’s nice to see them involving locals in their conservation projects.”

In the past few months, the forest patrolling team of the village have caught and fined outsiders illegally farming in the forest, stealing the soil and hunting.

With the fines collected the village has set up a small scholarship fund that will be awarded to promising students who want to pursue higher studies in the cities. Some of the funds will also be allocated to new mothers their babies as medical expenses.

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Maharashtra/Rise-of-the-green-guards/Article1-985665.aspx

Not as green as they first appear

Gautam Pandey

In Kerala, as elsewhere, pristine forests are being fragmented and destroyed by activities like plantation, mining and farming. The needs of development have to be balanced with the importance of protecting the endangered green cover. Without the latter, nothing will remain

With an opportunity to travel through Kerala for over 20 days by road for work was more than a dream come true. My first trip to ‘God’s own country’ was due and I couldn’t wait to explore the backwaters and rainforests of Kerala. To make up for lost time I decided to drive through the State starting from the southern tip and fly to Thiruvanathapuram, a sea of green stretch below me. I planned to drive through the State zig-zagging my way and heading north.

I was a little unprepared as my ‘first impressions’ hit me. It was hard to tell when exactly I crossed the city and when a town began. The entire stretch seemed urbanised with villages and towns merging into one and other.

After a couple of hours of driving, I reached greener areas with old growth mixed forests on both sides of the road. These were the primal rainforests I had been waiting for. As I drove on and my eyes got used to the explosion of green all around me, I gradually realised that while there was prime forest, it was fragmented — stitched together by plantations. After I saw one plantation, I kept seeing them everywhere. Rubber, spices, tea, and coconut plantations were seamlessly interwoven with the forest. This was an illusion. What seemed green and healthy was actually a heavily fragmented and stressed environment.

I reached Munnar where entire hills as far as the eye could see had been shaved off prime forest and had tea planted on them. How ironic it was to see people getting their photographs taken with the Munnar hills as a backdrop. The whole situation felt more like a ticking bomb than ‘God’s own country’.

The majority of the world’s biodiversity hotspots are located in tropical forests. The Western Ghats are a prime example of a tropical biodiversity hot spot which is home to numerous endemic species. Unfortunately what has happened in Kerala is evident through out the entire Western Ghats. Plantations, mining and construction have fragmented and split our forests like a piece of shattered glass. While some patches can be large and sustain a degree of biodiversity, the majority gradually become degraded with some forests altogether disappearing.

India has had a long tradition of conservation and the sacred groves were one such method of conservation. A forested area often with streams and lakes was believed to have a resident deity and considered sacred. No one was permitted to cut, kill, or take anything from a scared grove. Some groves are even out of bounds for humans. Sacred groves are like banks of bio-diversity left untouched and pure. In some areas so strong is the belief that people passing through and exiting a grove would dust their body and clothes just incase they don’t carry anything out of the forest.

With big money backing the mining industry, these groves aren’t spared either. Recently while filming in Goa we visited a sacred grove which was on the list to be mined. The forest was unspoiled with a pristine stream flowing out from under the roots of a gigantic tree. We drank the water and rested there. It was hard to imagine that in a matter everything here would just be scraped away leaving the red earth exposed like a big open wound. The mining industry was destroying prime forests and fresh water sources. While announcements to control the mining have been made and some mines closed down, the reality is quite different. A few weeks back our crew was attacked by mining mafia goons and it was forced to destroy all the footage. The situation in Goa’s forests is so bad that experts foresee a huge freshwater crisis in the State within the next few years.

What is a little confusing is, that while experts and researchers raise alarm bells about the state of forests the Forest Survey of India has actually declared that India’s forest cover has been increasing for the last 13 years, with a net addition of 1,128 sq km, or 0.16 per cent, in the last two years. This was indeed good news, what with all the carbon credits, global warming and climate change issues, except for one little fact.

The very definition of ‘forest cover’ by the FSI is that if tree canopy covers more than 10 per cent of a one hectare plot, it can be classified as a forest. Since satellite images are used to determine ‘forest cover’ all mono culture plantations including tea, coffee, rubber, timber etc qualify as a forest.

Recently, researchers Priya Davidar, Jean-Philippe Puyravaud  and William F Laurance argued in a paper they presented that the FSI used computer software that couldn’t distinguish between natural forests and plantations. Based on their ground research what has now been revealed is truly frightening. Rather than expanding, India’s forests have been shrinking by 1.5 per cent to 2.7 per cent per year since the last two decades.

This is a very high rate of forest loss and India is at risk of losing the majority of her forests within the next few decades. With rapidly shrinking and fragmented forests diversity and number of species will continuously reduce.

Fragmented forests result in a large number of wild animal deaths every year. Animals, both large and small, move and migrate between forests and many are run over, killed, separated and sometimes poached as they leave the forest and cross inhabited areas. Not only are the animals directly affected, but it is also the health of the forest itself which suffers. Animals are natural seed dispersers and with restricted movement plant species are also affected. In tropical forests this movement of plants and animals plays a crucial role and maintains a high level of biodiversity. It has been observed that in isolated forests biodiversity degrades over time with some species becoming extinct locally.

With roads, railway lines, fields and plantations separating forest areas, animals have no choice but to cross these man-made barriers. The result is road deaths and often man-animal conflicts, with casualties on both sides. Moreover, as a fragmented forest gets smaller and further fragmented, the population of animals and insects falls, resulting at times even in the extinction of a species locally.

On the upside, what we have now is a lot of comprehensive and conclusive research. The time for action is now. Driving through Kerala I eventually landed up at The Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary where a committed and passionate group of residents, gardeners, naturalists and educators with love for nature have been working towards habitat restoration in degraded areas of the Western Ghats. The sanctuary itself is on the border of a large rainforest reserve and was actually a reclaimed plantation. Through some planning, but with most of the healing left to nature the forest over 30 years has come back, and along with it so have the insects, birds, reptiles and mammals.

Hopefully, with just a little foresight and common sense, we just might be able to save what was never really ours to destroy.

(The writer is a wildlife filmmaker)

Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/53040-not-as-green-as-they-first-appear.html

Elephants trample brick kiln worker

STAFF REPORTER
Elephants trampled upon to death a brick kiln worker near Periya Thadagam on Sunday night. According to the Thudiyalur police, the incident happened around 9 p.m. when the worker Palanisamy came out of his house. He was a native of Amaravathi Dam area.

The police took his body to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital for postmortem.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/elephants-trample-brick-kiln-worker/article4257649.ece

Almost every evening people from nearby brick kilns and animal enthusiasts mob play hide and seek with the elephants causing enormous stress to the elephants. This incident has happened as expected. Police presence and their action to control these mobs has to be there. District administration and Local Panchayat are only busy in aiding soil mining brick kiln mafias in this elephant corridor and habitat.

Coimbatore Forest department having fewer resources at their disposal are being stretched to the maximum and their financial resources that were spent for electric fences are not working, trenches dug are poorly done. Forest Ranger in this area is always busy in non-forestry activities.

So.. Blame it on the elephants continues.
- Mac Mohan

Nirmal Kulkarni, ecologist

He kept the green in tourist-saturated Goa

Ananda Banerjee 

First Published: Fri, Dec 28 2012. 05 38 PM IST

Kulkarni at his residence in Fortawaddo, Nerul, Goa. Photo: Rakesh Mundye/Mint

Updated: Fri, Dec 28 2012. 06 57 PM IST

A way from the beach parties of Goa, the systematic destruction of its pristine forests has stirred a young man to create awareness about the Western Ghats and conserve them in the state. The Western Ghats, running along the south-western edge of the Indian peninsula, are among the world’s top 10 biodiversity hot spots. They are home to one of the most significant repositories of species found only in this country—popularly referred to as endemism.

Nirmal Ulhas Kulkarni, 34, was felicitated this year with the prestigious Karmaveer Puraskaar for his role in conserving the northern Western Ghats (which led to the creation of the Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary) and the proposal to upgrade the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary to a tiger reserve. “Recognition like this helps strengthen the resolve of the person and the team, as field-based research is a tiring process,” Kulkarni says. “More than preserving wildlife, it draws attention of the masses towards vital issues that are at times forgotten during the pace of daily life. It reminds everyone that people working in forests around the state need support and motivation and everyone can do their bit to conserve nature in their own backyard.”

In the last decade, around 50 new amphibian species have been discovered in the Western Ghats. Three of these—Goan caecilian (Gegeneophis goaensis), Mahdei caecilian (Gegeneophis mhadeiensis), and the Chorla Giant striped Ichthyophis (Ichthyophis davidi)—were discovered by Kulkarni. “My core contribution to Goa’s environment movement would be my training and capacity building of young nature lovers into committed wildlife activists and researchers for over a decade,” he says. “The simple approach of collecting scientific data and providing support at the grass-root level has helped to create foot soldiers for Goa’s conservation movement,” he says.

At the age of 18, Kulkarni became Goa’s youngest Honorary Wildlife Warden as well as a member of the State Wildlife Advisory Board, where he continues to serve. Kulkarni’s publication, The Goan Jungle Book, has helped create interest about the state’s lesser known wildlife. “Consistently training field staffs of the forest department, documenting human-wildlife relationships, sacred groves, the presence of large cats in Goa and the plight of bullfrogs have helped make a big difference over the years,” he says.

However, the threat of mining still looms large in Goa’s Western Ghats. The series of large dam projects that have been planned in Karnataka and Maharashtra will destroy large tracts of pristine forests. According to Kulkarni, people are aware of the threats to the region, in part due to media coverage, but they haven’t been able to relate these threats to their daily lives. “In 2013, we will try to help every lay person understand the direct link between forests, water and their daily lives, whether in a city or a village,” Kulkarni says.

Source: http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/Vd0V7bQFuS3BD4oiWPsN4H/Nirmal-Kulkarni-ecologist.html