The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Stakeholders in jitters over fate of Kolleru sanctuary

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Sunday, Apr 17, 2011
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Stakeholders in jitters over fate of Kolleru sanctuary

G. Nagaraja

ELURU: With the Aziz Committee, appointed by the National Board of Wildlife (NBW) on the fate of the Kolleru Wildlife Sanctuary, due to submit its report to the government, the fishing communities and green workers are on tenterhooks.

The seven-member committee was appointed in April 2010 with Dr. P. A. Aziz, Director of the Coimbatore-based Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) as its chairman. It was asked to submit its report on reduction of the size of the sanctuary from the contour+5 to the contour+3 within 90 days. The committee interacted with the fishing communities and green activists in the area on September, 2010. There appear no signs of submitting its report yet. The dilly-dallying over the fate of the sanctuary has resulted in revival of aquaculture in the plus five contour. According to reports, a section of people resorted to either reviving or renovating the fishponds which were demolished in the sanctuary under contour+5 during the Operation Kolleru programme. The wildlife division of the Forest Department has registered 236 cases relating to revival of pisciculture in the sanctuary area till November 2010. A senior official from the Forest Department said the department was under strain to protect the sanctuary now due to a kind of atmosphere created with the passage of the Assembly resolution and the debate fuelled by political parties in favour of reducing the lake which all strengthen the encroachers' case. In the run-up to the appointment of the expert committee, a map with boundaries fixed at contour+3 was approved at a joint meeting convened by the Special Chief Secretary, department of Environment and Science, in February 2009 for submission to the NBW for consideration in line with the Assembly resolution.

This map seeks to limit the sanctuary area to 9,018 ha, which included an extent of 99.39 ha covered by human habitations. The final notification issued by the State government in 1999 through the GO Ms. No. 120 fixed the sanctuary area at contour+5 with an area of 30,855 ha. If the sanctuary is reduced, an extent of more than 20,800 ha is expected to be freed for aquaculture from the confines of the Wildlife Act.

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