PROTECTED AREA UPDATE News and Information from Protected Areas in India and South Asia

T PROTECTED AREA UPDATE News and Information from protected areas in India and South Asia Vol. XXI, No. 3 June 2015 (No. 115) LIST OF CONTENTS Maharashtra 9 337 villages from nine talukas in Pune district grant EDITORIAL 3 no-objection to ESZ Tiger conservation and the construction of an Efforts to introduce solar irrigation pumps in Pench ‘urban conservation public’ TR buffer NTCA nod for release of a captive tigress in Pench NEWS FROM INDIAN STATES Tiger Reserve Assam 4 Illegal research carried out on animals at VJBU and 11 poachers killed, 20 arrested in Kaziranga National SGNP in 2001 Park this year Odisha 11 NGT asks Assam government to submit status report 70 lakh Olive ridley hatchlings in Odisha on restraining construction inside Manas NP CFR titles under the FRA distributed to villages in WWF-India and Apeejay Tea partner to reduce the Similipal TR human-elephant conflict in Assam Odisha Mining Corp to get Karlapat bauxite mines, Gujarat 5 part of which are inside the Karlapat WLS FD proposes drone surveillance for Gujarat forests Punjab 12 Jharkhand 6 Punjab to release gharials in Sutlej and Beas rivers Jharkhand working on a comprehensive 24/7 Rajasthan 13 elephant track-and-alert mechanism Tigers from Ranthambore TR moving into MP Karnataka 6 Five tigresses had 22 miscarriages in Sariska TR in NTCA approves tiger reserve status to Kudremukh; seven years state government disagrees Tamil Nadu 13 Dharwad-Belgavi railway line section turns death Plastic waste in elephant dung in Mudumalai, trap for wildlife Sathyamangalam and Periyar TRs Karnataka initiates satellite based forest database Visitors on a night safari in Mudumalai TR in Less than 25% wildlife crime cases resolved in violation of the law Nagarahole between 1992 and 2013 Telangana 14 Kerala 8 250 acres bio-reserve to be created in Hyderabad Help from tourism to tribal communities in University campus Parambikulam TR Uttarakhand 14 ‘Elephant proof trenches causing escalation of Tiger Reserve tag for Rajaji NP human-elephant conflict in Attapady West Bengal 15 Study anticipates another outbreak of monkey fever WII study reports no tiger signs in Buxa TR in Wayanad WLS, adjoining forests Madhya Pradesh 9 NATIONAL NEWS 15 Director Panna TR transferred for opposing Ken- MoTA refuses to exempt defence projects cleared by Betwa river link Environment Ministry Conviction in 13-year-old tiger poaching case More than 3.43 lakh hectares of forestland diverted for development projects between 2004 and 2013 Proposal to create institutional mechanism for using IMPORTANT BIRD AREAS UPDATE 20 CAMPA fund National News Two Indian conservationists win Whitley Awards BNHS project for satellite tracking of Bengal Rescue centres planned for orphaned, injured wild florican animals Andhra Pradesh Task Force on interlinking of rivers constituted Tension between villages over fishing in Kolleru India signs MoU with France for setting up marine Madhya Pradesh research institutes Indian skimmer spotted in the Satpura NP Centre considers a proposal to make lion India’s Diclofenac threat to vulture continues in national animal Bundelkhand Maharashtra SOUTH ASIA 19 Conservationists seek higher compensation for Bangladesh & India coconut growers to conserve vulture nests India and Bangladesh to jointly protect forests, Forest clearance withheld for Mumbai Trans Harbour primates of the Patharia Hills Link through the Sewri mudflats Bhutan & India India and Bhutan plans to halt habitat loss and A DECADE AGO 23 degradation in Manas landscape Nepal PERSPECTIVE 24 Nepal rhino population increases by 21% Tillari Must Not Die Protected Area Update Vol. XXI, No. 3, June 2015 (No. 115) Editor: Pankaj Sekhsaria Editorial Assistance: Reshma Jathar, Anuradha Arjunwadkar Illustrations: Shruti Kulkarni, Madhuvanti Anantharajan, Peeyush Sekhsaria Produced by The Documentation and Outreach Centre KALPAVRIKSH Apartment 5, Shri Dutta Krupa, 908 Deccan Gymkhana, Pune 411004, Maharashtra, India. Tel/Fax: 020 – 25654239 Email: [email protected] Website: http://kalpavriksh.org/protected-area-update Publication of the PA Update has been supported by Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) http://fes.org.in/ Duleep Matthai Nature Conservation Trust, C/o FES World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) - India Bombay Natural History Society Action Aid India Donations from a number of individual supporters Protected Area Update Vol. XXI, No. 3 2 June 2015 (No. 115) to enlist the interest and support of the general EDITORIAL public to the rationale of conservation. The question of what is a ‘public’ and how an amorphous, unconnected set of people with varying interests and backgrounds come to Tiger conservation and the construction of an constitute a ‘public’ with a common agenda has ‘urban conservation public’ been the subject of much research in the social sciences. One can discern clear trends in this An unprecedented pot-boiler has been playing context in wildlife conservation efforts in India, out in the forests of the Ranthambhore Tiger particularly in the case of the urban citizen. Reserve as a controversy rages on regarding the The effort here has been mainly fate of tiger T-24, also known as Ustad. T-24 operationalized through the lens of tourism: reportedly killed Rampal Saini, a forest guard in connecting the unconnected urban folk with early May in the reserve and even as details of ‘untouched’ wilderness and nature; through the what had happened were emerging, there was argument that tourism supports local people news that he had been tranquilised and moved financially and by arguing that tourists can be 400 km to the Sajjangarh Biological Park in the eyes and ears of conservation and protection Udaipur. Events unfolded at a brisk pace, – that poaching, for instance, is unlikely to allegations were seen flying thick and fast, and happen in an area visited by tourism. Individual there was a clear lack of clarity, certainly animals, like in the case of Ranthambhore, have agreement, on what some of the basic facts of been given names and individual identities; the case were, or should be. legends and mythologies have been created While the forest department and a round them, and all of this has been mobilized number of prominent experts opined that the to support conservation and protection. tiger had become a maneater and should be The hope has been that this urban removed from the forests, a group of the public public will become a wildlife defender and a started a campaign, mainly through social defender of the entire idea of conservation. The media, asking for Ustad to be brought back. attempt, one might argue, has also been quite There were complaints that the decision to move successful with this section having aligned itself him had been taken in a hurry and that there was firmly behind the idea of wildlife conservation. no transparency in the whole episode. All this This ‘urban conservation public’ which is alongside allegations that the tiger had been broadly middle – upper-middle class urban India moved due to the pressure of the tourism lobby has, over the years, been in synch with the in Ranthambhore. The forest guards meanwhile, ‘expert conservation community’ that is mainly threatened to boycott work if the tiger was constituted by wildlife and environment NGOs, allowed to remain and a group of tour guides the community of researchers and scientists, a were seen asking for him to be brought back. section of the press and also the state. Going into the details of the matter, or Tiger T-24 is perhaps the first judging the veracity of any of the claims and significant case in which we see a rupture in this facts is not the purpose here. The matter, has in alignment – for once, the urban conservation any case, been settled legally with the Jaipur public was seen aligned on one side of the High Court ruling that there was no case for divide, the conservation community on the Ustad to be taken back to Ranthambhore. The other. It is noteworthy that the key challenge to main thrust of this edit, therefore, is analytical the decision to move tiger T-24 into captivity with a focus on the role of one key player in the has come from this ‘urban conservation public’ controversy – the tourist or what might be called that has catalyzed into becoming a single, vocal the ‘urban conservation public’. and effective community through the One of the major efforts of the wildlife technology of social media. conservation community over the years has been Protected Area Update Vol. XXI, No. 3 3 June 2015 (No. 115) There are two related points that this The NGT had, on January 9, restrained leads us to – both of an analytical nature. Social the Water Resources Department from taking up studies of knowledge have shown convincingly any river work at Mathanguri. It had then that controversies are very important in a better directed the Chief Secretary of Assam to take understanding of situations because they create the necessary steps in the matter, to ask all his the theatre where competing claims over subordinate officers to ensure compliance and to authority, expertise, knowledge and facts play submit a status report within four weeks. It had out. A controversy also allows for a certain stated earlier that the place comes under the transparency, and decisions that might have purview of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 occurred backstage, have to now be performed and there is a restriction here, therefore, on the before an audience that is listening and de-reservation of forests or use of forestland for watching. Justice, as it is said, needs not only to non-forest purposes. be done, but also needs to be seen as done. The The NGT in its latest order said that T-24 case is a very good illustration of this.

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