BENGALURU: To reduce man-animal conflict and prevent encroachment of forest land, the cabinet-sub committee on Wednesday approved the proposal of the forest department to identify and declare eco-sensitive zones (ESZ) in six forest patches in the state, including Nagarhole Tiger Reserve.
While Bandipur Tiger Reserve has a defined ESZ, it was not defined in Nagarhole. Due to which forest officials were getting into conflicts with realtors and influential people who were taking up construction activities.
The sub-committee approved the ESZs, adhering to Supreme Court orders and Environment Ministry guidelines in Kappatagudda Wildlife Sanctuary in Gadag, Chinkara Wildlife Sanctuary in Bukkapattana, Tumkuru, Kamasandra Wildlife Sanctuary in Kolar, Anshi National Park and Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve and Cauvery Extended Wildlife Sanctuary.
As per procedure, the decision of the cabinet sub-committee will be placed before the cabinet and after it is approved, it will be sent to the central government for clearance. According to department records, the central government has declared ESZs in 29 forest patches. Already three proposals to declare ESZ are pending before the ministry for approval -- Bheemgad, Gudekotte (in Vijayanagar) and Sharavathi.
“The SC has directed that wherever no ESZ has been declared, a default of 10km has to be maintained and a minimum of 1km. As a department, we are fine, but the government wants it to be defined so that development and other works can be taken up. Hence, the boundaries are being defined with forest and non-forest areas,” a forest department official said.
The official said, “We had proposed to add non-forest areas under ESZ, but the government was not keen on this. Hence, a combination of forest and non-forest lands have been listed.”
Name of area -- forest cover -- proposed forest land for ESZ --- forest land in proposed ESZ----non-forest land in proposed ESZ (in sqkms)
Kappatagudda -- 244.15 -- 322.695 -- 23.804 -- 298.890
Chinkara -- 136.11 -- 157.086 -- 18.566 -- 138.52
Kamasandra -- 78.62 -- 93.27 (non forest area)
Nagarhole -- 643.39 -- 573.97 -- 302.36 -- 271.61
Anshi & Dandeli -- 669.06 -- forest area of 448.81 & non- forest 220.25
Cauvery extended -- 53.39 -- 145.369 -- 143.663 -- 1.706
EIGHT ARRESTED WITH ELEPHANT TUSKS
Bengaluru: The Bengaluru forest mobile squad have arrested eight persons in Ramanagara district for possession of elephant tusks. The accused, hailing from Bengaluru, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, were arrested at Marideveradoddi Cross when they were trying to sell the ivory pieces. The arrested Aiyan Kutty (53), M Venkatesh (51), Ratna U (46), Narayanaswamy A (50), A Dinesh (42), Ravi M (44), S Manohar (62) and Krishnamurthy (35) have been remanded to judicial custody. Eight pieces of ivory weighing 26 kg were seized from them.