Three more tiger reserves in state,Nagpur to be gateway

Ramesh said the Centre had approved an initial grant of Rs 50 crore for the rehabilitation of villages at Tadoba and Melghat. He said the forests department had an important role to play in anti-Naxal operations and announced that bamboo would be recognised as a minor forest produce that can be accessed by tribals. Tribals would be given transit passes in accordance with the permission given by the local gram sabha. The Union Cabinet has also approved that cases against tribals cannot be registered by local forest officials without consent of the gram sabha.

“Next week,I will be going to Gadchiroli to launch a new scheme. It will open a new era in the relation of forest with people. The paradigm of forest conservation has to change and must make tribals partners in forest management. All rich,mineral,tribal and violence areas overlap. The Forest Department has an important role to play in anti-Naxal actions,” he said.

The Union Forest Department will issue a new notification in dealing with man-animal conflict on Monday,which includes many measures from those practised in Mumbai.

On apprehensions among a section of tiger lovers that the tiger gateway concept is more to benefit tourism than the tiger and that excessive stress on tourism will affect the tiger cause in the end,Ramesh said,“That’s not true. Tourism will help the tiger. We need suatainable tourism for tiger.”

Ramesh’s own ministry has issued guidelines to states to phase out tourism from core areas as it is perceived as interferring with tiger conservation there. The idea is to create a completely inviolate space for tigers in core areas and shift tourism to outside (buffer) areas.

About Bor,Nagzira and Navegaon,the Forest Department is yet to send proposals to Centre as there are many logistical difficulties like additional areas required to be amagamated with the small core areas for future requirements. “As of now,we are focusing only on declaring the available core areas as critical tiger habitats. The area can be subsequently enlarged. But they would still be called Projects Tiger once notified,” said Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) A K Saxena.

with inputs from Vivek Deshpande in Nagpur