Happily uprooted A well-calculated compensation plan eases relocation pain of forest dwellers from the core area of Melghat Tiger Reserve It’s not the kind of relocation story that one usually hears. Early last year three villages were uprooted from their traditional land in the core area of the Melghat Tiger Reserve to make way for free movement of the big cat. They did not protest, and walked away with their belongings and herds of cattle. Eight months since, they are comfortably settled and prospering. Residents from other villages in the tiger reserve now want to be relocated and have approached the Maharashtra forest department. Officials say people are eager to relocate because of the revised rehabilitation package and a novel formula developed by the forest department to disburse the compensation. |
 Using compensation money, people dug wells and are growing crops (Photo: Ashwin Aghor) |
The core area of this tiger reserve in Amravati district has 30 villages. This is not the first time the forest department has made an effort to relocate villages from the core area, as required under the Wildlife Protection Act. It had initiated the programme twice before: first in 2000-01 and then in 2003-04.
It managed to vacate only five. The programme got stalled due to reluctance of people.
“The compensation then was just Rs 1 lakh per family. It was too meagre to motivate people to give up their land and forest resources,” says S M Sarjuse, a range forest officer in the tiger reserve.
There was another option: the government would rehabilitate people at a location of their choice. Landless people would receive one hectare per family and the rest be compensated on house-for-house and land-for-land basis. The forest officials had used this option for relocating two villages from Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Chandrapur district in 2007. Each family was given a house and a little more than two ha as part of rehabilitation package. But they could not grow crops in the absence of irrigation facility. Within two years, most had returned to the forest, saying they were well-off depending on bamboo and forest produce (see ‘Relocation by half measures’, Down To Earth, August 1-15, 2009).
So in 2008, when the Centre raised the compensation amount to Rs 10 lakh per family, following the recommendation of the National Tiger Conservation Authority, forest officials seized the opportunity. “We prepared the proposal for relocation of Amona, Nagartas and Barukheda villages in Wan wildlife sanctuary and sent it to the Ministry of Environment and Forests,” says G D Deshmukh, range forest officer of Barukheda range. The relocation process could not be initiated until January 2011 due to administrative hurdles and funds crunch. But once the money was sanctioned, 381 people from these villages were relocated within four months, he adds.
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“This is first of its kind relocation in the country where an entire village has been shifted out of forest in one go,” says Praveensingh Pardeshi, Principal Secretary (Forest), Maharashtra. The success lies in the formula, which the forest and administrative officials worked out with village heads to ensure assured income to people at regular intervals. They helped the residents open savings account and transferred the compensation amount to them under three plans. Rs 2 lakh was deposited in the savings account so that the residents could use the amount to pay for the cost of shifting and constructing new house. Rest of the money was put in fixed deposits (FD): Rs 3 lakh for nine months to facilitate purchase of farm land or meet other needs in near future and Rs 5 lakh for six years. The interest on FD would accrue in the savings account. |
 Map not to scale |
Residents of Amona were resettled in Kasod village in Akola, while people from Barukheda and Nagartas were resettled in Wari village. The irrigation department offered its abandoned colony in Wari, built during the construction of Wan dam. People eagerly bought the houses at Rs 60,000 to Rs 80,000, says Deshmukh. “This is for the first time that the irrigation department has given its land for relocation of people in the state,” Pardeshi says.
The revenue department helped them get land, but asked them to pay for it and construct houses on their own. “We were careful not to repeat the mistake committed while rehabilitating people from Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve,” says D G Goswami, assistant conservator of forest, Akot Wildlife Division. Using the money they have dug wells and installed borewells, and are growing crops in abundance.
Life is different now
In place of a thatched hut in Amona, Mungilal Patel Kasdekar is now the owner of a three-storey building in Kasod in Akot tehsil. He lives with the families of his three sons and had received Rs 40 lakh as combined rehabilitation package. With the money, he purchased a hectare of farm land and one tractor, which he rents out. Together, his family earns Rs 20,000 a month. This is above the interest amount they get on the Rs 20 lakh in their FD accounts.
His neighbours Ramvilas Kasdekar and Kalya Pandu Patil have bought second-hand SUVs, which they have rented out for passenger service from Kasod and nearby villages to the tehsil headquarters. “I never thought I would own a four-wheeler,” says Ramvilas, who proudly flaunts his cellular phone, motor bike and the satellite TV connection. “While living in the forest we barely had the electricity supply. Very few had ration cards. Every day we would walk 10 km to Kasod or other villages, for all our needs. It was almost impossible to go to a health centre. Now, the health centre, schools and markets are all within the distance of a few kilometres,” he says. The only problem is, says Ublal Baluja Kasdekar, then police patil (village guard) of Amona, “we do not know where to graze our cattle herds”.
Residents of the host village are also happy with the influx. Though the region is fertile, land used to lie fallow due to labour shortage. Kasod residents are now leasing out their land to Amona families or hiring them as farm labour.
The successful rehabilitation of Amona, Barukheda and Nagartas has prompted at least six other villages in the tiger reserve to appeal for relocation. The forest officials are preparing a relocation plan for them, says G H Chavan, forest guard at Amona. With the villages and their 3,000 herds of cattle removed from the area, tiger, leopard, hyena and sloth bear have started returning to the area, says Chavan, who had never spotted a large carnivore in the area during his posting for over a decade.
Progenitor facing threat from progenyBy Dharmendra Khandal Aug 10 2011
Most of us cannot imagine the start of our mornings without milk whether it is the morning cup of masala tea or the breakfast cereal. We are holy cow worshippers but maybe the buffalo is being more kind to us. The largest buffalo population in the world is found in India, it is about 50% of the world population, and these are the foremost source of milk security for our country. It is due to the buffalo that India's white revolution was a success; the milk production doubled from 54 million tonnes in 1990 to 112 million tonnes in 2010.
Do you know that even today their wild ancestors are present around us? Originally, the Wild water buffalo were domesticated 5,000 years ago. As per the IUCN data, the worldwide wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) population is less than 4,000 buffalos, of which 90% is in our country, while there are about 100 million domesticated buffaloes in India. The wild buffalo population exists in two areas of India — North East and Central India.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has believed it to be endangered in their red data book of species. Poaching, isolated populations leading to inbreeding lastly but a serious threat is gene pool dilution and disease spread from domestic populations around wild buffalo population. The areas preferred by the wild buffalo population are the ones that have short grasslands and wetlands as compared to wooded forests.
This animal is the third largest wild animal standing tall after the elephant and rhino and its horns are the largest as compared to all other animals in the world. The herd is usually calves and females that are led by an old female buffalo forming stable herds; the young males have a separate bachelor group.
Experts believe that this wild population is very small and scattered, hence, they may be facing inbreeding problem. It is believed that the main population of the wild ancestors is in Kaziranga and Manas National Parks. There is a regular interaction of domestic buffalo with wild buffalo bulls, wild bulls follow the domesticated buffalo and the interbreeding leads to pollution in the pure gene pools. This is outflow of gene but there are more issues with domestic cattle herding with the wild population making it even more difficult to separate.
The population found in Central India — Indravati Tiger Reserve and Udanti Wildlife sanctuary and is slightly bigger in size compared to the population of North East. This population is believed to be less than 100 and with the whole area being affected due to naxalism, it is difficult to actually know the population size and adapt any conservation model.
Kishor Rithe, a conservationist working in Central India, motivated the Maharastra government towards declaring this area of Ghadchiroli to be a reserve forest where this endangered population is present but the Maharastra government has still not been able to shape this proposal.
It is difficult to protect such exclusive vulnerable populations in a country like ours where a hundred million domestic buffalos are ready to pollute them and 1.2 billion people are ignorant about their conservation. However, the least we can do is protect areas where these populations are found.
(The writer is a conservation biologist at Tiger Watch, Ranthambhore)
R. SREEKAR AND RUDRA RAM
A solitary Grey-headed Lapwing Vanellus cinereus was
sighted at Hussain Sagar (17º 25' 7" N; 78º 28' 3" E) located
in the centre of Hyderabad city, Andhra Pradesh, India, twice
on January 26, 2008, once on January 27, 2008, and twice on
January 29, 2008. It was seen on the northern shores of the
lake abutting Sanjeevaih Park. Its grey head, yellow beak
with black tip and white secondaries differentiated it readily
from the other Lapwings (Red-wattled Lapwing Vanellus
indicus), which were also present in the area. This is the first
record of the Grey-headed Lapwing from Hyderabad. ...more
| OCCURRENCE AND BREEDING RECORD OF THE FOREST OWLET HETEROGLAUX BLEWITTI FROM YAWAL WILDLIFE SANCTUARY, MAHARASHTRA, INDIA RUSHIKESH A. CHAVAN AND KISHOR D. RITHE The Forest Owlet Heteroglaux blewitti is one of the least known birds of India. It was
considered extinct for 113 years, until its rediscovery on November 25, 1997, by Ben
King,Pamela Rasmussen, and David Abbott in Toranmal Reserve Forest of Shahada
in Nandurbar district, Maharashtra ...more Habitat Loss Worsening On a late afternoon waiting on the banks of the River Ken in the Panna Tiger Reserve for a boat, we heard the thud of the axe against wood. Villagers were removing forest cover and there was no forest official to stop them. The dhabas at Panna use wood as fuel and most of it could have only been ...more --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Vanishing Forests from Satpuras I can not see the death of our forests! During my routine travel through the forests of central Indian highlands i.e. the Satpuras, whenever I come across encroachments on forest land, my blood get heated. If somebody does it out of need, I usually meet the tribal family, try to understand the socio-economics and help the family in coping up withthe situation. But most of the time when it happens at a mass scale because of some policy decision of the state or central Government, then it provokes me...more --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rain-drenched forest bristles with activity July 23, 2006 P. Devarajan For long, one had wanted to walk and watch a forest in the rains and that happened when Kishor Rithe took me round my favourite tiger sanctuary blessed by the Tadoba Deo, the resident tribal god. One has not visited many sanctuaries but for me Tadoba is the best, far ahead...more -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Breakfast with birds in pristine surroundings P. Devarajan William Barrett in an introductory essay to the Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki,Zen Buddhism, writes: "For the readers of this book the question will hardly arise of becoming a Buddhist, but that does not lessen the importance of Zen to them... " In the beautiful words of the Master Hoyen:...more --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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