The Hindu : Karnataka News : Wildlife cases: State at the bottom of compliance list

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 22, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Wildlife cases: State at the bottom of compliance list

By Alladi Jayasri

BANGALORE, NOV. 21. The best-kept secret in Karnataka is arguably the fact that the State has earned the dubious distinction of figuring at the bottom of the compliance list in wildlife and forest-related cases in the Supreme Court, particularly those related to the December 1996 directive banning felling and clearing of vegetation in protected areas. Interestingly, Bihar tops the list in complying with all directives of the Supreme Court and those of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC). Karnataka has remained without a Minister for Forests and Ecology for the past six months.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court passed orders directing the Director of Project Elephant to take note of the death of 77 elephants in the Nagarhole National Park between April and October this year.

Govt. oblivious

The State Government, however, continues to be oblivious to the consequences of non-compliance. As if to show what it thinks of conservation and protection of wildlife, the Forest Department has ruffled scores of wildlife lovers and conservationists by deciding to open up the Bandipur National Park, which has 89.02 square km of core protected area, for eco-tourism.

The justification being given is that the department has not sighted even a single carnivore in the park in the past 12 months, and that there is no threat to eco-tourists from these animals.

And how can a carnivore, or even a herbivore for that matter, be sighted at Bandipur when a tiger, several elephants, spotted deer and peacocks have got killed by vehicles zipping on the national and State highways that cut through the park. A few months ago, a tiger died after being hit by a truck in the Nagarhole National Park.

Elephant deaths

The directive issued on Friday came when the amicus curiae, Harish Salve, drew the court's attention to the death of 77 elephants. A Bench comprising Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice Arijit Pasayat passed the order. Mr. Salve said many animals were dying in forest areas, particularly those adjacent to coffee estates, which interfered with the path of the elephants on the move.

To prevent damage to the crops, estate owners had illegally resorted to electric fencing, which was proving fatal to the animals.

Two months ago, the CEC, which visited Bangalore to hear forest-related cases pertaining to the State, rapped the Forest Department for the manner in which it had handled a case relating to a petition which contended that large-scale felling of trees and illegal mining in the forests of Belgaum district was having serious consequence on the wet evergreen forests of the Western Ghats.

The forests coming under the proposed Mahadayi dam project, a joint venture between the State Governments of Goa and Karnataka, is also the only habitat in the country for the Wroughton's Free Tail Bat, which was once classified as vermin and recently entered the Schedule I list of wildlife species of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, making it a threatened species.

The only known roosting site of these bats is in the Barapede caves in the region.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court pulled up the State Government for excluding a part of the Kudremukh National Park from the final notification to accommodate Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd., which has its mines within the boundaries of the park.

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