MoEF Project Tiger in Kaziranga: Row erupts

Feb 17, 2011 - Rashme Sehgal |

Age Correspondent

New Delhi

The efforts of the environment and forests ministry declare Kaziranga national park, which has the world’s highest density of tigers, as a Project Tiger reserve appear to have backfired.

The recent removal of encroachments around Kaziranga by the park authorities triggered strong protests by the Kaziranga Jeep Safari Association and other stakeholders. They shot off letters to both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and minister of state for environment Jairam Ramesh demanding that Project Tiger be withdrawn from the reserve as it hindered the free flow of tourists.
Project Tiger director Rajesh Gopal counters this, saying that a “a lot of wrong information is spread about Project Tiger. Whichever sanctuary has been converted into a tiger reserve has seen a great deal of additional investment and more livelihood opportunities for local people.” Ministry sources also noted that it was extremely unlikely that Kaziranga would cease to be a tiger reserve.
The official acknowledged that Kaziranga was home to a large breeding population of elephants, wild water buffaloes, swamp deer, rhinos and tigers, and said given its sensitive location — close to the borders with China and Nepal, from where a lot of smuggling in animal parts was taking place — it was imperative to safeguard the animals’ natural habitat.
Kaziranga park director Surajit Datta, trying to reassure the local population, acknowledged the point of conflict was the demarcation of a 10 km eco-sensitive zone under the Environment Protection Act 1986.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/57982" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-97e51fd6c8fa75e4c0f43250d4fffd1b" value="form-97e51fd6c8fa75e4c0f43250d4fffd1b" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80735210" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>