The Hindu : Kerala News : Proposals to expand protected areas revived

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 04, 2006

Kerala

Kerala

Proposals to expand protected areas revived

Roy Mathew

Forest Department plans to include 10 locations in the network

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Forest Department is reviving two-decade-old proposals for expansion and rationalisation of protected areas in the State.

Nearly 10 locations are tentatively proposed to be included in the protected area network as part of this plan.

The choice of areas notified as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the past was arbitrary or based on consideration other than biodiversity potential.

Consequently, many of the valuable tracts of forests with rich biodiversity are now outside the protected areas.

Protecting biodiversity

This is to be corrected by giving emphasis to protection of the exceptional biodiversity of the portions of the Western Ghats in Kerala.

The Wildlife Institute of India had taken up studies for improving the protected area network in the country in the Eighties based on conservation potential, and the ecologist S. Sathis Chandran Nair had submitted detailed proposals for the network in Kerala.

However, these were not implemented. Mr. Nair submitted updated proposals to the Forest Department this month, suggesting studies for inclusion of 10 forest areas in the protected area network.

The French Institute has also conducted studies towards expansion of the protected area network in the State.

Ecosystems excluded

The existing network of protected areas, Mr. Nair notes, does not cover all the ecosystems in the State.

Of the relatively undisturbed rainforest ecosystem in Kerala Western Ghats, not even half the area is included within the protected areas.

Hence, locations of great biodiversity value remain outside the protected areas.

A large number of endemic species with very restricted distribution range, species with small residual population as well as specialised habitats occur in the higher reaches of the Western Ghats.

Most of the biodiversity rich higher reaches of the Ghats, particularly north of the Palakkad Gap, are outside the protected area network.

Recently, ganja cultivation is posing a very serious threat to such habitats.

Onslaught of tourism

He adds that the onslaught of tourism development, and in particular what is currently labelled eco-tourism, poses a serious threat to even the diminutive area of undisturbed forest currently included within the protected area network. He also suggests formation of clusters of individually small units of protected areas where expansion of existing protected areas to include them is not feasible. The tentative list of locations proposed for detailed study for inclusion in the protected area network is given in the chart.