UNIT 11 WILDLIFE SANCTUARIES and NATIONAL PARK Structure 11.0 Objectives 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Wildlife Reserves, Wildlife Sanc
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UNIT 11 WILDLIFE SANCTUARIES AND NATIONAL PARK Structure 11.0 Objectives 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Wildlife Reserves, Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks: Concept and Meaning 11.3 Tiger Reserves 11.4 Project Elephant 11.5 Indian Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks and their specialties 11.6 Wildlife National Parks Circuits of India 11.7 Jeep Safari and Wildlife Tourism 11.8 Let us sum up 11.9 Keywords 11.10 Some Useful books 11.11 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises 11.12 Reference and bibliography 11.13 Terminal Questions 11.0 OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, learners should be able to: understand about Wildlife Reserves, National Parks and Sanctuaries differentiate between National Parks and Sanctuaries learn about various famous National Parks and Sanctuaries and their main attractions understand about Wildlife Protection Act of India explore Tiger Reserves and Elephant Reserves explain Wildlife Tourism 11.1 INTRODUCTION Wildlife of India is important natural heritage and tourism attraction. National Parks, Biosphere Reserves and Wildlife Sanctuaries which are important parts of tourism attraction protect the unique wildlife by acting as reserve areas for threatened species. Wildlife tourism means human activity undertaken to view wild animals in a natural setting. All the above areas are exclusively used for the benefit of the wildlife and maintaining biodiversity. “Wildlife watching” is simply an activity that involves watching wildlife. It is normally used to refer to watching animals, and this distinguishes wildlife watching from other forms of wildlife-based activities, such as hunting. Watching wildlife is essentially an observational activity, although it can sometimes involve interactions with the animals being watched, such as touching or feeding them. Protected areas in India include National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuary, Reserve Forest, Conservation reserves, Marine reserves, Community reserves and Biosphere reserves. Indian states territories are bestowed with a plethora of flora and fauna. National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries are protected areas declared by Government with the primary objective to preserve wildlife, save flora & fauna and restore the natural ecological balance. The main purpose of Government to declare any area as National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries under protected areas is to preserve wildlife, save flora & fauna and restore the natural ecological equilibrium. Areas National Parks are around 100 sq. km to 500 sq. km and the emphasis has been given to preservation of floral and faunal species. 11.2 WILDLIFE RESERVES, WILDLIFE SANCTUARIES AND NATIONAL PARKS: CONCEPT AND MEANING The concept of 'National Parks' and' Equivalent Reserves' is a direct outcome of urbanization, industrialization and human population explosion, which have directly or indirectly led to the catastrophic exploitation of the nature and natural resources. The growing popularity of the concept further reflects man's deep concern over the existing situation of strained global eco- balance, which has posed a serious threat on his own survival. Now, the nature, no more, is considered to be inexhaustible. Also, it has been principally accepted that the nature no longer can defend herself simply by remoteness or inaccessibility. National parks and equivalent reserves are being viewed as one of the effective remedies against the exploitation of the representative natural habitats, biomes and ecosystems. Moreover, the man is in vital biological and ecological need of a vast network of national parks and similar heritage areas for his physical, psychological, spiritual and therapeutic wellbeing, and as an antidote to urban and the artificial life. These are some reasons which lead to the rapid and consistent development of the park concept, the world over. However, the term 'National Park' is not universally used and the alternates words 'Game Park', 'Game Reserves', 'Wildlife Sanctuary', ‘Biosphere Reserve' and 'Wilderness areas etc. are used for the purpose of preservation, protection and conservation of natural qualities. The basic concept of national parks varies widely from country in 'type' 'size', 'objectives' and philosophy of administration and management. This dissimilarity is largely due to difference in the geographic location of the reserves, their outstanding features, and socio-economic, political and environmental factors controlling them. However, protection, preservation, conservation, education and recreation are always the basic principles behind the establishment of such heritage area. The basic purpose of the national park system is to preserve for all times, areas which contain magnificent objects of geographical, geological, biological and historical importance as a national heritage for the benefit, education and enjoyment of the people". The IUCN in its 10thgeneral assembly in New Delhi (in 1969) formulated the following definition of National Parks which is adopted by most of the countries: A National Park is a relatively large area: (1) Where one or several ecosystems are not materially altered by human exploitation and occupation; (2) Where plant and animal species, geomorphological sites and habitats are of special scientific, educative and recreative interest, or which contains a natural landscape of great beauty; and 3) where the highest competent authority of the country has taken steps to prevent or to eliminate as soon as possible exploitation or occupation in the whole area and to enforce effectively the respect of ecological, geomorphological or a esthetic features which have led to its establishment; and 4) where visitors are allowed to enterunder special conditions, for inspirational, educative, cultural and recreative purposes. In addition to National Parks, 'Biosphere Reserves' and 'wildlife areas' are the two popular systems receiving recognition in more and more countries. The core concept in all three cases is one and the same: protection and conservation of the heritage areas. The main differences are being in choice of the area and norms on use patterns. The concept of Biosphere Reserve was evolved under UNESCO's Man and Biosphere (MAB) program, to meet the following objectives: 1) To protect and conserve, for present and future human use, diversity and integrity of biotic communities of plants and animals within natural ecosystems and to safeguard genetic diversity of species on which their continuing evolution depends; 2) To provide areas for ecological and environmental research, particularly base line studies both within and adjacent to these reserves; such research to be consistent with objective as at (i) above ; and , 3 )To provide facilities for education and training. Evidently, the main objective of this system is to provide suitable areas which can serve (i) as 'gene pool banks', by retaining their biotic diversity, and (ii) as ecological benchmarks for conducting research related to the wellbeing of the biotic communities and their environment. Keeping in view the basic ethics, a biosphere is only feasible when the area designated is large enough to serve as a nearly perfect ecological unit, and is kept free from any kind of human intervention. Preferably, such an area should be specific either for greater diversity of the biotic resources, or for harboring some unique or threatened species. Of late, this concept is being widely adopted by the countries as an immediate remedial measure towards the protection of the endangered and vulnerable plant and animal species. Tourism or recreation development was, however, strictly denied in the Biosphere Reserve. Thus, the wilderness areas to be essentially managed on the principle of non-degradation, which means that such areas should be managed to provide for the protection and perpetuation of the value of wilderness resource and prevent deterioration caused by other resource activities or by visitor use, and, when necessary to restore deteriorated sites to an acceptable condition. National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries in India: Concept of protection, preservation and conservation of wild animals and plants together with a deep sense of respect for nature, existed in India from the early periods. Philosophical and religious ethics encouraged the people to respect, as well as protect the nature. In fact, India had evolved the system of wildlife sanctuaries, in the form Abhayaranyas (protected game forests) as early as 400 BC. But gradually, with the time, we forgot this glorious legacy, which resulted in the indiscriminate exploitation of country's forest and wildlife resources. It was during the third decade of twentieth century that, India, once again awakened to her long-forgotten love for the wild. This time the inspiration came from the west, particularly from the USA where the modern park concept took birth in 1872. The idea of constituting a national park for protection and conservation of natural qualities and for the betterment of the society was expressed by some leading naturalists and conservationists of the country in 1870, which ultimately got materialized on March 1,1872, when 'Yellow stone National Park', first national park of USA, as well as of the world, came into being. Almost 56 years later, India constituted its first wildlife sanctuary i.e. Manas Sanctuary in Assam in 1928. However, the first national park of the country namely Corbett National Park came into being in 1935. Since then, India has progressed rapidly. Out of total geographical area of 32,87,263 km2 of India ,total