Tripura to create jumbo corridor

Agartala: In a bid to curb man-elephant conflict in the foothills, the Tripura government has okayed a plan to develop an elephant reserve spreading over 123.84 sqkm in the Baramura and Debtamura hill ranges of the state.
A council of ministers on Tuesday cleared the plan to establish the elephant reserve with its own funds, said state information minister Bhanu Lal Saha.
The state has been insisting on an elephant conservation corridor in the Atharamura-Baramura-Debtamura ranges, but the amended Wildlife Protection Act, 2003, has prevented the move.“The existing provision of the Act does not allow us to develop a reserve in the proposed area. Hence, the state government has undertaken an initiative to protect wild animals, forest and environment,” said Saha.
The government has constituted a committee, including wildlife experts, to go ahead with the plan, he added.
A huge amount of crops have been destroyed by wild elephants and monkeys in the hills. As per official records, 13 major incidents of man-elephant conflicts were reported in the state in the last five years. Three elephants have been killed in the state since 2008. Last week, an elephant was killed by poachers, said chief wildlife warden and principal chief conservator of forests A K Gupta.
According the latest Census, there are at leas 25 elephants in the Atharamura-Baramura-Debtamura stretch and they often attack human settlements due to food crisis.
The population of wild elephants have increased substantially in the state in the last six years and 59 elephants, including 10 calves, were spotted in the latest survey. There were only 40 pachyderms in 2002.
“As the wildlife warden, my concern is to protect elephants, monkeys and other wild animals, but at the same time, we also have to consider the sufferings of the poor villagers living in the foothills. Hence, I support the protection initiative in the area,” Gupta stated.
The proposed elephant conservation move is aimed at restricting human activities in the forest which will revive the forest cover and provide sufficient food and habitat to animals in the region, he added.
“We are responsible for the situation because we have destroyed their habitat and now the animals are coming to the villages,” said forest minister Naresh Jamatia.
“The demarcation of elephant reserve aims at ecological restoration of existing natural habitats and migratory routes of elephants, promotion of measures for mitigation of man-elephant conflicts in crucial habitats, reducing the impact of human and domestic activities in crucial elephant habitats and strengthening measures for protection of elephants from poachers and unnatural causes of death,” said Jamatia.
Earlier too, the state government has constructed big water bodies in two locations to save the pachyderms and prevent man-elephant conflict in the Atharamura range under MGNREGA fund, he added.
However, NGOs and nature conservationists blamed the government for indiscriminate allotment of land under the Scheduled Tribes and Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (RoFR) for the situation.
Tripura is considered one of the frontrunners in the country for having successfully implemented the Act. The Left Front government in Tripura has distributed land rights (patta) of about 1.76 lakh hectares to about 19,000 forest dweller and this is being blamed for damaging the forest cover.
The Project Elephant was launched in February 1992 as a Centre-sponsored scheme with its focus on protecting the Asian Elephant and its habitat.