Hubballi: In a major surgery to the protection force, the Kali Tiger Reserve (KTR) has sacked 16 of its temporary staff for involving and supporting illegal activities.
Counted as the largest Tiger Area in Karnataka, the Kali Tiger Reserve in Dandeli of Uttara Kannada district is considered as future for tiger conservation. In the last three weeks, the authorities have removed temporary staff from two wildlife ranges in Kumbarwada and Anashi.
Among the sacked staff, eight members were working at the Anti Poaching Camp (APC). It is said that the sacked staff overlooked the cases of poaching, illegal entry and forest encroachments. Most of these members were part of forest department for over a decade and some of them were accused of supporting local population involved in anti forest activities.
"There were several complaints against few temporary watchers over their way of working. Many forest cases reported in their area were being ignored regularly. This is not good for the conservation. The area of KTR is large and incidents of poaching and encroachment are not good for healthy forest. Hence we decided to remove all those staff and appoint new members. In the last one month there have been changes on the ground, animal sightings have improved and poaching cases are nil," informed a forest official from KTR.
But the bold move by the Forest Department has not gone too well with the local political leaders. The forest officials are under constant pressure of taking the staff back to duty owing the condition of their families and their serve records. But the foresters are not ready to take the sacked staff back.
Local conservationists suggest that the temporary staff and those who exclusively work in Anti Poaching Camps must be shifted to different camps on a regular basis. "The department has taken a good step and it must stick to it despite the pressure tactics from local politicians. Strict measures are a must for improvement of tiger numbers in Kali Reserve," said a conservationist from Dandeli.