Experts stress urgent need to secure corridors for wildlife

Dehradun, June 29

Securing wildlife corridors stands to be the sole answer to minimise man-animal conflict in the state. Corridor, a strip of land that connects one forest patch to another, holds the key to animal movement and is basis to survival of species.

This is the view of most of the wildlife experts, who have raised demand for according a legal status to the corridors.

Wildlife experts, who met in Delhi recently, have also called for a paradigm shift in the way people, policy-makers and the judiciary perceives corridors. They said there was urgent need to formulate a comprehensive corridor management plan.

WWF India Terai Arc Landscape team leader Anil Kumar Singh found a securing corridor key to minimise man-animal conflicts in states like Uttarakhand, where this conflict has risen to alarming proportions in the recent years.

Talking to The Tribune, Singh points out that the basic reason behind animals like leopards, tigers and elephants attacking habitants and raiding crops was due to a check on their free movement from one habitat to another caused due to the fragmentation of corridors.

“A wildlife restricted to a patch of forest is bound to venture to nearby habitations and lead to man-animal conflict and thus, connectivity between two forest patches holds much significance towards reducing this conflict,” he said.

Uttarakhand has nearly 12 corridors which include corridors linking Rajaji Park, now a tiger reserve with Corbett National Park, a corridor that links western and eastern parts of Rajaji and corridors that connect Corbett and Rajaji to their territorial forest divisions.

Among the impending threats to these corridors include infrastructures, quarrying, unsustainable resource extraction, industrial and urban demands for land and resources. Corridors falling outside protected areas are most vulnerable.

Interestingly, in case of Uttarakhand, where tiger population is thriving in Corbett and even spilling into the nearby territorial forest areas, bringing this tiger population to Rajaji tiger reserve has always been a challenge due to poor connectivity between these two protected areas. Even lack of proper connectivity between eastern and western part of Rajaji has led to isolation of two tigresses in the western part of the park.

Wildlife conservationists opine that while even small population of wildlife species can thrive if it gets better connectivity, a large population can annihilate if it is restricted to a particular patch of forest.

The Delhi meeting has appealed to the Union Environment Ministry for categorically stressing on precise mapping of all functional corridors in the country while backing potential policy changes that are required for supporting corridor conservation.

They argued that a corridor management plan must have multipronged approach that includes short-term mitigation plans in regions facing immediate threats and a long-term strategy simultaneously. The participants also mulled over concepts like the feasibility for non-profit organisations to raise Corporate Social Responsibility funds for land purchase, to secure corridors. The option for including communities for monitoring of corridors was also discussed.

Tribune News Service