PROTECTED AREA UPDATE NO. 107, FEBRUARY 2014

Here is the full list of contents of the new issue of the PA Update. IF you would like to receive the entire 24 page newsletter as a pdf file, please write to me at psekhsaria@gmail.com
---

PROTECTED AREA UPDATE
News and Information from protected areas in India and South Asia

Vol. XX, No. 1
February 2014 (No. 107)

LIST OF CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
The perils and promise of mass-scale bird watching

NEWS FROM INDIAN STATES
ANDHRA PRADESH
- DRDO Missile Test Range proposed within Krishna WLS

ARUNACHAL PRADESH
- Tiger photographed in Dibang WLS

ASSAM
- Three rhino poachers held at Rajiv Gandhi (Orang) National Park
- FD dismisses NFR’s proposal for iron pillars inside Gibbon WLS to prevent accidents with elephants

GOA
- Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal visits the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary

HIMACHAL PRADESH
- Villagers inside GHNP surrender guns, promise to protect wildlife

KARNATAKA
- Proposal for Wesley Bird Sanctuary
- FD needs veterinarians with expertise in handling wild animals

KERALA
- Fear of foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in wildlife in Kerala

MADHYA PRADESH
- FD alleges that villagers nearly killed two tigers when Pench TR staff was away on election duty

MAHARASHTRA
- Tadoba Andhari TR leopards to be radio-collared to track them, prevent human-animal conflict
- Increased camera fees raises over Rs. 6 lakh for Tadoba Andhari TR
- Cattle grazing poses threat to newly notified Navegaon-Nagzira TR: FD

ODISHA
- Fisherman gunned down in a mid sea gun battle at Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary
- Villagers from the Sunabeda WLS take stand against Maoists
- Odisha proposes to shrink Satkosia TR
- 32 families relocated from the core zone of Similipal TR

UTTARAKHAND
- Fossil National Park proposed in Lapthal in Pithoragarh district

UTTAR PRADESH
- Centre releases first ever financial sanction of Rs. 24 lakh for Amangarh TR

WEST BENGAL
- Authorities arrest 45 involved in wildlife smuggling in border areas of West Bengal

READERS’S WRITE

IMPORTANT BIRD AREAS UPDATE
NATIONAL NEWS
- MoEF directs GIB range states to have recovery plan; Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat ready with the draft

ANDHRA PRADESH
- Dugarajapatnam port threat to the Pulicat Lake
- Flamingo festival at Pulicat

GOA
- Flamingoes at Carambolim Lake after five years

GUJARAT
- No Greater Flamingos in the Great Rann of Kutch this season

MADHYA PRADESH
- Farmers around Bhoj wetlands give up chemical agriculture

MAHARASHTRA
- Three month bird survey in Sanjay Gandhi National Park
- Opposition to research project on forest owlets near Melghat TR; other researchers back the project

ODISHA
- Poaching incidents in Chilika

UTTAR PRADESH
- NGT asks Uttar Pradesh to fix ESZ around Okhla Bird Sanctuary

The FRA, PAs and WILDLIFE CONSERVATION
- Official circulars/ guidelines related to applicability of Forest Rights Act in PAs

MAHARASHTRA
- Community Forest Rights (CFRs) rejected in Melghat TR

WEST BENGAL
- Gram sabhas stop FD from clear felling forests in vicinity of Jaldapara WLS
- First gram sabhas formed in Sunderbans TR

IN THE SUPREME COURT

Remembering Prakash Gole

A DECADE AGO

PERSPECTIVE
Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction

----

Protected Area Update
Vol. XX, No. 1, February 2014 (No. 107)
Editor: Pankaj Sekhsaria
Editorial Assistance: Reshma Jathar, Anuradha Arjunwadkar
Illustrations: 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: psekhsaria@gmail.com

---
Publication of the PA Update has been supported by

- Foundation for Ecological Security (FES)
- 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

Ikkat - At daram in Hyderabad

Ikkat

Ikkat or tie & dye is one of the best known and considerably complex traditions in weaving - something that the Nalgonda belt in Andhra Pradesh is quite famous for. The process involves elaborate calculations and markings on the yarn followed by different stages of dyeing to finally get the complex and beautiful patterns that the tradition is well known for. Here are some pictures a trip a couple of years ago to the village of Kunthlagudem in Nalgonda

the weftthe weft to the left. the warp has been laid out for marking and tying to the right

the weaver works on the weft as the warp is stretched across the length of the house

The state of Wildlife in North-east India - Review in Frontline

A habitat in danger

   

• Author: Edited by Pankaj Sekhsaria
• Publisher: Kalpvriksh and Foundation for Ecological Security

A guide to wildlife conservation in north-eastern India in the midst of insurgency, increasing immigration, and encroachment. By A.J.T. JOHNSINGH

NORTH-EASTERN India, at the confluence of the Indo-Malayan, Indo-Chinese, Palearctic and Indian biogeographic realms, is famous for its varied and rich biological and ecological values. It comprises the “Seven Sister States” of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and the Himalayan State of Sikkim. The region can be physiographically categorised into the eastern Himalaya and north-eastern hills, and the Brahmaputra and Barak valley plains. It is inhabited by nearly 160 Scheduled Tribes, speaking about 220 languages. Faced with problems of insurgency, increasing immigration and growing encroachment, the wildlife and the habitat of this region are in immense danger.
The State of Wildlife in North-east India, 1996–2011: A Compilation of News from the Protected Area Update, edited by Pankaj Sekhsaria who has been working with Kalpavriksh, and published by Foundation for Ecological Security, strives to give information on developments related to wildlife conservation in north-eastern India. For 17 years and running, the Protected Area Update (PAU) has studiously presented a consolidated account of India’s wildlife and protected area (PA) network. Based almost entirely on what the English media in India report on wildlife, it is a huge, valuable database with nearly 4,000 stories and news reports.
The news reports on north-eastern India have broadly ranged from those covering unfortunate and unexpected events involving armymen on hunting and wildlife souvenir collection expeditions, and tragic incidents of wild elephants killing about 260 people in Assam since 2001 and of 280 elephants dying mostly on account of human retaliation to ceremonial developments in the cause of wildlife protection.
Section I contains regional news, with reports on attempts to form an inter-State biosphere reserve, elephant and gibbon conservation, tourism, funds released for various conservation work, encroachment (which is a humongous problem), and population estimation of large mammals (which is a usually a hugely flawed conservation endeavour in the country). The table “Population Census of Important Wild Animals for the years 1997 and 2002” is full of mistakes; it lists 1,607 rhinos in Arunachal Pradesh and 5,246 in Assam with a note below saying that the count is only for the Namdapha Tiger Reserve, which is in Arunachal Pradesh. The fact is that the total rhino population in the country is less than 3,000. There is no information on leopards in Manipur, Meghalaya and Sikkim.
Mention has been made of Aparajita Datta, a former student of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and currently a scientist of the Mysore-based Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF). She heads the conservation programmes in north-eastern India and was the recipient of the 2009 Women of Discovery Award.
To get the best out of this book, one has to read through Section 2 (“Analysis and Perspectives”), which contains seven well-written articles. Mehak Siddiqui and Rajesh Reddi inform us that of the 516 news reports about the north-eastern region, Assam got the maximum coverage (404) and Tripura the least (4). Of the 516 stories, 275 were about five protected areas, all from Assam, and 138 (27 per cent) were on the world-famous Kaziranga Tiger Reserve. Many news items about Kaziranga were related to poaching, flooding and tourism. It cannot be denied that Kaziranga is the best in terms of conservation with its valiant guards protecting the rhinos and other wildlife at a time when the government is unable to keep away encroachers.
Sonali Ghosh, a young forest officer from the WII with a Ph.D. (on the fascinating topic of the Indo-Bhutan Manas landscape) from Aberystywth University, United Kingdom, writes about the importance of ‘bush meat’ (a term used in Africa) in the lives of the local people and explains how the wildlife rescue and rehabilitation programme could take off successfully.
Yashveer Bhatnagar, a student of WII and who now heads the snow leopard programme in India under the aegis of the NCF, writes about the potential for snow leopard conservation in Sikkim and Arunachal Himalaya. He believes that tigers and snow leopards could occasionally be coming face to face in the upper reaches of the Dihang Dibang Biosphere Reserve and Namdapha Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh, and concludes that the large free-ranging dog population maintained by the army is a serious threat to wildlife, especially the snow leopard. Defence forces do and can play a vital role in promoting snow leopard conservation. Anwaruddin Choudhury, who knows more about north-eastern India than anyone else in the country, has written about Karbi Anglong, which he rightly calls ‘the little-known wilderness’ in Assam. While carrying out his surveys in the early 1990s, Anwaruddin found the area to be extremely rich in wildlife. In a 10 square kilometre area in the Dhansiri forests, he saw evidence of a pair of tigers and a grown-up cub. He is worried about the future of Karbi Anglong because of the growing militancy, encroachment and rampant poaching.
The association of Nimesh Ved with Samrakshan Trust from 2002 to 2010 gave him splendid opportunities to understand the Garo hills. He rightly observes that the greatest threat to the area comes from coal mining and monoculture plantations. Poaching and tree-felling are also widely prevalent.
Neeraj Vagholikar of Kalpavriksh, who has closely tracked environmental governance issues with respect to large dams in north-eastern India since 2001, laments that the government has taken a casual approach to wildlife conservation by approving all hydel projects. To save prime protected areas, endangered species like river dolphins should be taken care of, he says. And to ensure the livelihood of the people living downstream of the proposed dams, sincere and sustained efforts should be made to check the planning and construction of ecologically damaging and unsustainable dams in the eastern Himalaya.
Neema Pathak Broome, a member of Kalpavriksh who has been championing the cause of community conservation through research, documentation and community mobilisation, writes that community conserved areas have emerged as a powerful new concept in the global conservation discourse. She gives several examples of such areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. The progress of community conserved areas in the north-eastern region, according to her, is primarily because of a higher degree of tenure security as compared to other regions in the country. She strongly and rightly believes that efforts should be taken to ensure that the existing territories are not alienated from the community in the name of development projects or creation of PAs. She believes that the tenure can be strengthened by the implementation of Scheduled Tribes and other Forest Dwellers Recognition of Forest Rights Act 2006.
The book also features an article on the statistical overview of PAs in India, with State-wise data and details of funds released under Centrally sponsored schemes such as Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats, Project Tiger and Project Elephant. India with a large human and cattle population has established 664 PAs extending over 1,58,508 sq. km.—4.83 per cent of its total geographic area. There are 99 national parks, 516 wildlife sanctuaries, 42 conservation reserves and seven community reserves. Thirty-nine tiger reserves and 28 elephant reserves have also been designated. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has designated five protected areas as world heritage sites. Institutions and, if possible, individuals interested in wildlife conservation, should possess a copy of this book.
A.J.T. Johnsingh is with the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore and WWF-India.

New Book - 'The State of Wildlife in North East India: 1996-2011'

‘THE STATE OF WILDLIFE IN NORTHEAST INDIA: (1996 – 2011) – A Compilation of News from the Protected Area Update’

Dear Friends,
I am very happy to announce the publication of a new book and the first that is based on the 18 years of information available in the Protected Area Update.

EDITED by Pankaj Sekhsaria
PUBLISHED by the Foundation for Ecological Security, Anand.
Pp: 300, over 100 line drawings.
Price: Rs. 250 + postage
Write to me at psekhsaria@gmail.com for details of how to procure a copy.
---

LIST OF CONTENTS
North East India Regional News;
News from the States:
Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura.

Perspective & Opinion:
The Print Mediaʼs Kaziranga obsession – An analysis (Mehak Siddiqui & C Rajesh Reddi);
A case study of wildlife rescue and rehabilitation in western Assam(Sonali Ghosh);
Snow leopards in the land of the rising sun(Yash Veer Bhatnagar);
Karbi Anglong: A little known wilderness of Assam (Anwaruddin Choudhury);
Elephants and other memories of the Garo Hills(Nimesh Ved);
Dams in the North East (Neeraj Vagholikar);
Community conservation of wildlife (Neema Pathak)

Annexures:

---

A NOTE ON THE BOOK (based on the editorial in Protected Area Update 102 (April 2013)

For over a decade and a half the Protected Area Update has religiously presented a consolidated account of India’s wildlife and the PA network. Published six times a year, it carries in a tightly edited format, news and information of what is happening in, to and around these national parks and sanctuaries that have been at the core of India’s wildlife conservation strategy.
Now, for the first time, a section of this huge body of information has been re-organised to form a completely new publication – what we have called ‘The State of Wildlife in North-East India - 1996-2011’. Published by the Foundation for Ecological Security, this is an historical account of developments in the PA network in the eight states of the north-east. While the primary unit still remains the individual protected area, the time line has changed from two months of one issue to 15 years that this publication covers.
In following one news item after another about any particular PA we see what happened month after month, year after year; what developments recurred at what periodicity; what were the issues that were important and what was done about them. It is, we believe, an important glimpse into the contemporary history of wildlife conservation in this very interesting part of the country.
And many insights emerge, none more striking than it’s Assam centred-ness. It might be a North East compilation but it might as well be called an Assam compilation. Nearly two-third of the stories are from the state of Assam alone. The others in the region seem to exist only on the margins. Even in Assam, about 50% of the stories are about only one PA, the Kaziranga National Park. This, in turn raises a whole set of questions - What explains this fascination with Kaziranga? Is it really that much more important than anything else in the region? Don’t other parks have a lot that Kaziranga does not? Is it about what is actually happening on the ground, about what the world thinks of Kaziranga or some dynamics of editorial desks and newspaper newsrooms? The answers are not really there, but the ground is laid for a lot more investigation, questioning and for gaining many insights.
The stories in this 300 page compilation have been illustrated with the sometimes quirky, sometimes amusing but always insightful line drawings that have been the hallmark of the PA Update since the beginning. It also includes a series of analysis and perspective by individuals with well established expertise in their fields of work, all related to the wildlife and environmental issues of the region.
It’s been a hugely instructive experience putting it together and we are confident it will be the same for those who will venture out now to read it.

facebook for A&N islands

Just started a new facebook group for the andaman and nicobar islands http://www.facebook.com/groups/andamanicobar/

Protected Area Update - October 2012

PROTECTED AREA UPDATE
News and Information from protected areas in India and South Asia

Vol. XVIII No. 5                                                
October 2012 (No. 99)

LIST OF CONTENTS
EDITORIAL               
The real costs of Coalgate

NEWS FROM INDIAN STATES
ASSAM
- Two poachers killed in Rajiv Gandhi (Orang) NP
- Elephant killed by speeding train near Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary

GUJARAT
- Scanty rainfall in Gir; FD makes alternative arrangement

KARNATAKA
- State opposes TR status for Kudremukh

KERALA
- Solar powered fences for Wayanad forests

MADHYA PRADESH
- Tribal museum to be set up near Kanha TR

MAHARASHTRA
- Wildlife conservation plan for Chandrapur district
- Panel for management plan for Pench Tiger Reserve buffer zone
- State wildlife board clears Gargai Dam; to submerge part of Tansa WLS

NAGALAND
- Workshop on Community Conserved Areas in Nagaland

ORISSA
- Alternative livelihoods planned for Simlipal forest dwellers

RAJASTHAN
- Mordoongri village moves out of Ranthambhore
- More tigers to be re-located to Sariska TR

TAMIL NADU
- Buffer zones notified for Anaimalai, Mudumalai and Kalakkad Mundanthurai TRs
- Merchants federation urges exclusion of Valparai from Anaimalai TR
- In-principle nod for Sathyamangalam TR; proposal for TR status for Srivilliputhur Grizzled Squirrel and Meghamalai WLS
- CEC rejects road connecting Theni forests and Srivilliputhur Grizzled Squirrel Sanctuary
- Delay in relocation from Mudumalai TR

UTTAR PRADESH
- Thermal power plant in Sonbhadra rejected because of proximity to Kaimur WLS

NATIONAL NEWS FROM INDIA
- CBSE warns against use of rare/endangered species in classrooms
- Coal mining threat to 1.1 million ha of forest, over 10 tiger reserves in Central India
- The IBN Network Young Indian Leader award for Kamal Medhi
- TN Khushoo Memorial Award for Vidya Athreya
- Five new tiger reserves approved

SOUTH ASIA               
- Bhutan, India, and Nepal agree to enhance cooperation in the Kanchenjunga Landscape

BANGLADESH
- 10,000 deer killed every year in the Sundarbans

SPECIAL SECTIONS
-- THE FOREST RIGHTS ACT, PROTECTED AREAS AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

NATIONAL NEWS
- Tiger reserve cores, buffers and ecotourism  An update

GUJARAT
- Consultation in Kachchh on the FRA

-- IMPORTANT BIRD AREAS UPDATE

NATIONAL NEWS
- Concern over threat to vultures from veterinary painkiller Aceclofenac

ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS
- Coast Guard radar project on Narcondam Island rejected

GUJARAT
- Gujarat has the highest number of Lesser floricans

MAHARASHTRA
- Six wetlands proposed as Ramsar sites
- New IBAs being identified in Maharashtra

PUNJAB
- Fishing contractors raid range office at Harike Wildlife Sanctuary

TAMIL NADU
- No new construction work within 5 km radius around bird sanctuaries near Chennai

******
Quick NEWS                                       
READERS RESPOND                                   
FROM THE ARCHIVES: A Decade Ago                           
PERSPECTIVE                                            
Thoughts from a conservation gathering: SCB Asia 2012
-----
EDITORIAL

--  The real costs of Coalgate--

How much really is Rs. 1.86 lakh crore? This is the figure presently doing the rounds of the loss the nation has incurred because of the corruption in the allocation of coals blocks in different parts of the country. This huge amount of money is at the centre of a huge churning that is taking place in the political establishment and in the media. There is an outrage at what looks like a loot of unprecedented proportions.
    Even as political parties slug it out, skeletons tumble out of corporate cupboards, as the electronic media finds juicy bits to occupy airtime and the many column inches of newspaper space get consumed by Coalgate, there is a more fundamental question that has neither been asked nor answered - what is it really that we are losing? The Rs. 1.86 lakh crore is an evaluation in one dimension, in one metric, actually, in only one world view. It is a computation of the loss in Indian National Rupees (INR) that has been incurred to the national treasury because a whole set of people (almost) successfully ducked the system. It is the alleged illegality, the cheating of the system where the real money for the coal was not paid.
    But, what if we assume for a moment that the game would be played by the book, that there would be competitive bidding, that the correct price would be paid? The state would earn the Rs. 1.86 lakh crore but would anything else change? To answer that question, even if as a partial counterpoint, one has to look at Greenpeace Indias most recent report How coal mining is thrashing tigerland (Page 12). Over 1.1 million hectares of forest, mostly dense, is at risk from coal mining in just 13 coalfields in Central India that the report analyses; there are 40 other coalfields which still remain to be evaluated.
These forests are home to a diverse range of flora and fauna including mega fauna such as the tiger, leopard and elephant; these forests are the carbon sinks which we want to exploit and market in international fora; and these are the lands that are home to thousands of adivasi communities who have lived here for generations. The Rs. 1.86 lakh crore is only the notional value of a single resource that lies buried deep; it does not include the value of anything and everything else, even if a valuation was indeed possible.
    The mining, where it will happen or where it has already happened, cares neither for the estimated economic losses nor the legality. The coal is the same, the processes are the same and the outcomes are same. The forests will be ripped apart, watersheds will be destroyed, rivers and streams poisoned, livelihoods and cultures of the adivasi communities sacrificed at the alter of development. It doesnt matter that these people bear the lightest footprint on the planet in these times of a climate change crisis and neither will it matter that many of these forests are adjacent to tiger reserves or are part of corridors linking one tiger or elephant habitat to another. Lets also not forget that conservation policies which aggressively seek to evict traditional communities for purposes of conservation are rendered almost completely impotent in the context of this discourse.
    Coalgate could be an eye-opener, but only if we understood the real value of this Rs. 1.86 lakh crore!

----
PROTECTED AREA UPDATE
Vol. XVIII, No. 5, October 2012 (No. 99)
Editor: Pankaj Sekhsaria
Editorial Assistance: Reshma Jathar, Anuradha Arjunwadkar
Illustrations: 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: psekhsaria@gmail.com
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
- Donations from a number of individual supporters

Information has been sourced from different newspapers and
http://indiaenvironmentportal.org.in; www.conservationindia.org

Protected Area Update - August 2012

Here are the list of contents and the editorial for the new issue of the Protected Area Update (August 2012). If you would like to receive the entire PA Update in its soft copy format please write to me at psekhsaria@gmail.com

thanking you
Pankaj Sekhsaria
Editor, Protected Area Update
C/o Kalpavriksh
---

PROTECTED AREA UPDATE
News and Information from protected areas in India and South Asia

Vol. XVIII No. 4
August 2012 (No. 98)

LIST OF CONTENTS
EDITORIAL               
The tiger tourism debate is on fire
NEWS FROM INDIAN STATES
ASSAM
- Huge impact of floods on Kaziranga NP; over 500 wild animal casualties
- Gibbon Conservation training for Assam and Arunachal Pradesh foresters

- New tiger reserve in Karbi Anglong district

GOA
- White-water rafting inside Mhadei WLS

GUJARAT
- Gujarat FD in dilemma; paying compensation to those who harass lions

- Group formed to oppose lion shows around Gir

HIMACHAL PRADESH
- Great Himalayan NP on the way to getting world heritage tag

KARNATAKA
- 5000 acres of revenue land in corridor connecting Bandipur and Mudumalai gets RF status

KERALA
- 80 tigers counted in Wayanad WLS

MAHARASHTRA
- State clears the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor through Sanjay Gandhi NP

- Hi-tech digital cameras to be installed in Sanjay Gandhi NP

- Rare plant ‘spiderwort’ rediscovered in Chandoli National Park
- Kin of tiger kill victim in Bor WLS compensated by FD, NGO
- State notifies Umred-Kharangala WLS and Kolamarla Conservation Reserve
- New PAs, additions, to increase PA area in Vidarbha by 500 sq km
- Proposal to drill deep bores inside Chandoli NP, Koyna WLS to study reservoir triggered seismicity

ORISSA
- Elephant population rises in OrissA

 

RAJASTHAN
- Ranthambhore and Sariska TR buffer zones notified

UTTAR PRADESH
- Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister for promotion of wildlife tourism in the state

WEST BENGAL
- Special Tiger Protection Force for Buxa TR
- 139 humans killed in elephant attacks in West Bengal in the last two years
- Dudhwa NP to get six kunkis from Jaldapara WLS 

NATIONAL NEWS FROM INDIA   

- India seeks US$ 30 million from World Bank for wildlife management, protection

- CII signs MoU with the World Bank for tiger conservation
- SC Bans tourism in core areas of tiger reserves
- Guidelines for tourism in protected areas
- Red list has 132 species of plants, animals as ‘critically endangered’ from India

- 48 tiger deaths in the first half of 2012
- NTCA asks for intensive monitoring in rhino-range states

SOUTH ASIA               

Nepal
- Nepal launches drones for wildlife protection

SPECIAL SECTIONS
•    The Forest Rights Act, Protected Areas and Wildlife Conservation

ORISSA
- Tribal groups oppose plantation drive inside Chandaka WLS
TAMIL NADU
- Protests against Sathyamangalam TR continue

•    IMPORTANT BIRD AREAS UPDATE

                  
NATIONAL NEWS
- Major vulture conservation initiatives for year 2014

ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS
- Coast Guard radar project on Narcondum Island could threaten Narcondum Hornbill

GUJARAT
- Status quo to me maintained for Banni Grassland
- Vulture numbers rise in Girnar hills

MAHARASHTRA
- Conditional clearance to the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link
- 80% reduction proposed for Nandur Madhmeshwar WLS

ORISSA
- New research, conservation initiatives at Chilika

PUNJAB
- Govt honours staff at Harike WLS that was injured in attack by land mafia
- Encroachments removed from 40 acres at Harike Wildlife Sanctuary

Quick NEWS                                       
FROM THE ARCHIVES: A Decade Ago                           
PERSPECTIVE                                                      24
- The 'dreaded' research permit

------
EDITORIAL

- The tiger tourism debate is on fire -

 In an order that will have far reaching consequences, the Supreme Court imposed a blanket ban on tourism in the core areas of tiger reserves with immediate effect on July 24. The order is up for review within three weeks but the stage has been set for a period of considerable turmoil in matters related to wildlife tourism, particularly that where the tiger is involved.
    There has been wide coverage of the development in the print and electronic media and the virtual world too has come alive with opinions, claims, allegations and counter allegations. A large section of the wildlife conservation community has been quite outraged and this is an important comment on the political economy of wildlife conservation as also of the wildlife tourism industry.
    One prominent wildlife photographer and hotelier posted a photo of a dead tiger on facebook with a prominent caption – ‘Tourism did not kill him – goat herders did’. Other comments have expressed indignation at a situation where villagers will be allowed to stay inside, but tourism will have to leave. It is noteworthy that wildlife conservation and tourism is implicated in an interesting and important overlap of interests. Those wanting conservation of wildlife are increasingly benefitting from it as tourism operators or then as consumers of a wild experience.
The case has been made for a very long time that tourism benefits wildlife because it constitutes non-consumptive use of the resource that can also benefit local communities in the process and 2ndly, that tourist presence denies poachers the chance to get at their quarry. The simplicity of these arguments conceals the fault lines of a situation that is far more nuanced and complex both, on the ground as well as in the policy domain. While conservation has been projected as an important national agenda, there is no denying that in the present paradigm it’s majority stake is restricted to a small section of the urban middle and upper-middle class.
There is also much evidence of the hardships experienced by and atrocities inflicted on local communities in the name of conservation. Ironically, the same paradigm is expected to benefit the same people from the same wildlife conservation, albeit through the tourism route. It is unlikely that the math will add up!
And this, as has been pointed out by many, is only a small part of the overall economic paradigm where everything is meant for consumption; where GDP and economic growth takes precedence over everything else and where even wildlife and conservation will have to pay for itself. Banning tourism is, perhaps, not the solution. If, however, the parameters of the debate and the discussions around conservation are themselves not re-negotiated, there is unlikely to be much progress.
For many proponents, tourism, if done sensitively, is part of the solution to the many conservation related challenges we face today. For the moment however, the shoe is on the other foot. The solution has become the problem and the SC order should be welcomed for the debate it has fostered and a new perspective it could potentially engineer. Whether this results in a wash-out or in a shake-out is something we have to wait and watch. And for a change, this particular wait is unlikely to be a long one!

----

THE 'PA UPDATES FOR A 1000 FOREST STAFF' Initiative

As an effort at increasing the readership of the PA Update, particularly amongst the forest and wildlife staff, those at the very frontlines of conservation effort, we are launching this 'PA Updates for a 1000 forest staff' initiative.
    It has been prompted by feedback to us that field staff often do not know what is happening in the policy arena, in other parts of the country and sometimes even in their own backyard.
    We have set ourselves a target of being able to raise enough resources in six months time so that the 100th issue of the PA Update will go out to a set of 1000 forest staff with your support. We would like to request and encourage you to subscribe to the PA Update on behalf of forest staff - the more you can support the better. You tell us which particular state, region, protected area or particular individual or office in the forest staff you would like to reach out to and we will use your gift subscription to send the PA Update to that person or set of persons for a period of one year.
    The annual subscription for this initiative of the PA Update will be only Rs. 100/-. You can support 100 such subscriptions or you can support just one!
    We are sure you will agree that this is a campaign worth undertaking and that we will also get your support and contributions for this. If you need any more information or details, please do let me know. Please also circulate this widely on other networks that you might be part of and send us suggestions or ideas of how to make this successful are very welcome indeed.