Mangrove research centre planned

Ignatius Pereira

Thiruvananthapuram

The Hindu, January 8, 2007

The Fisheries Department has taken the initiative to start a Mangrove Eco-system Research and Demonstration Centre at Ayiramthengu, near here.

An ad hoc proposal will be submitted to the State Government soon. If the project materialises, it reportedly will become the first mangrove research centre in the country.

The 50-acre mangrove forest owned by the department at Ayiramthengu is an environmental hot spot. Many species of animals feed and breed here. The forest provides a glimpse of how the mangroves function as a habitat for many marine species, a safe haven for otters and a favourite destination of migratory birds. While the demand to conserve mangrove forests to protect the environment has been raised for years, it was after the tsunami in December 2004 that the need for mangrove-protected waterfronts as a dependable defence against the waves gathered serious momentum.

The fact that mangrove forests enhance the fish wealth also began to get recognition.

Mangroves are also a traditional social link with coastal human communities dependent on the sea for their livelihood.

They preserve wildlife and provide precious food for livestock. Yet no serious efforts have been made to protect them.

The Ayiramthengu mangrove forest was also threatened with extinction. In 1996, the Fisheries Department stepped in with a programme to preserve it.

The success of the programme has now prompted the department to put forth the proposal to start a mangrove research centre. The department will provide the facilities for research.

M.K. Prasad, chairman and executive director, Information Kerala Mission, and an authority on mangroves, says Ayiramthengu is an ideal location for research on mangroves and the Fisheries Department is the best agency to promote it.

Dr. Prasad says that with the mangrove forests in the State disappearing by the day, a research centre can work wonders in augmenting mangrove forests.

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Eco groups seek action against encroachers

PALAKKAD
The Hindu, January 3, 2007
Environmental organisations here have demanded the State Government to take immediate steps to evict encroachers from Anthimahakalankadu vested forest in Ottapalam forest range, one of the main watershed areas of the Bharathapuzha.

In a statement here on Tuesday, the Bharathapuzha Samrakshana Samithi (protection association) general secretary Indanur Gopi said the Government, in a counter affidavit filed before a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on a public interest petition, had said that the area would be protected under the ecologically fragile land Act, 2006.

The association filed the petition in 2004. The court recorded the assurance of the Government on November 25, 2006 and disposed it of.

As part of the implementation of the court order, the forest area was surveyed and 2.9 hectares of forest land found encroached, the statement said.

Anthimahakalankadu, an ecological hotspot spanning 190 hectares, were taken over from an erstwhile landlord under the Kerala Private Forests (Vesting and Assignment) Act, 1971. It was notified as vested forest item no. 74 in 1974.

On survey, it was found that some of the land was encroached. In various cases, the courts ordered restoring of 40 hectares of the forest to private parties. These areas were taken over by the Forest Department under the Kerala Forest (Vesting and Management of Ecologically Sensitive Lands) Ordinance of 2000.

Charge against officials

Janajagratha, in a separate statement here, alleged that some forest officials seemed to have connived with the encroachers.

Janajagratha secretary P.S. Panikkar said the authorities should demolish the building on encroached forest. The Kerala Forest Act, 1961, said that if there was encroachment, including construction of shed or any other structures, these should be demolished. The Forest Department should register cases against the offenders and produce them before the court. But in this case, no action was taken.

The forest officials here said that they had filed cases against an engineer, two supervisors and a worker and arrested them for encroaching upon forest land and constructing structures. A case was filed against them in the Ottapalam magistrate court, where the accused were produced on December 23.

 

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Efforts to settle tribal land issue this year: Rajendran

T Ramavarman
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
The Hindu, January 1, 2007 
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government was hopeful of an early Central sanction for distribution of forest land to tribal people in the State. "If all goes well, the Government will be able to settle the long-pending tribal land issue this year itself," Revenue Minister K.P. Rajendran said.

Talking to The Hindu here, Mr. Rajendran said the hearings on the State Government's appeal for that sanction were progressing on a positive note before the `Empowered Committee' on forest land appointed by the Supreme Court.

The Centre informed the committee that it did not have any objection in transferring the forest land to the Kerala Government for distribution among tribal people without remitting the Net Present Value (NPV). "So we hope the hearings will conclude on a positive note within next couple of months," he said. As per the earlier plan, the State would have to remit Rs.577 crore as NPV to the Centre to get 7,693 hectares of forestland for distribution among the tribal people.

The Centre had earlier agreed to waive this condition during the early days of the previous United Democratic Front Government. However, the Centre had to reverse its stand following the filing of some petitions before the Empowered Committee.

Mr. Rajendran said as per the data collected jointly by the departments of Tribal Welfare and Revenue there were about 32,131 tribal people in the State who had less than one acre.

Among them, about 9,500 families were staying in settlement colonies, each owning four cents. The Government was making efforts on a war footing to give title deeds and possession certificates to all of them. The figures available with the departments indicated that 22,052 tribal families were landless. The permission of the Centre was being sought to distribute one acre of forest land to each of these families, as agreed by the Government led by A.K. Antony, the Minister clarified.

Aralam issue

Mr. Rajendran said the Government would adhere to the stand that only half of the 7,000 acres from the Aralam farm in Kannur district could be distributed among the tribal people. The other half would remain as the farm.

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A victory for nature lovers

The Hindu , October 9, 2006 

MUNNAR: Environmental activists have won a two-decade-old campaign with the declaration of Kurinjimala Sanctuary in Idukki district.

The Gazette notification issued by the Government covers 3200 hectares of Kurinji habitat as originally proposed. Forest Minister Benoy Viswom has seen to it that the original proposal was adhered to despite pressures.

The area falls in the Survey No. 58/1 of Kottakkamboor village and Survey No. 62 of the Vattavada village in the district.

The notification said that the sanctuary was being constituted for ensuring the long-term protection for the entire biodiversity of the area, especially the `Neelakurinji' (Strobilanthes kunthiana) and its habitat. The Government considered it necessary to declare the area as a sanctuary for protecting its ecological, faunal, floral and geomorphological, natural or zoological wealth and also for providing connectivity between the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary and the Anamudi and Pampadum Shola National Parks.

The area, it said, supports animals like elephants, gaur, deer and Nilgiri Tahr. It is also one of the last abodes of the famed Neelakurinji, which blooms once in 12 years.

The area, it added, had been subjected to various types of environmental degradation such as fire, encroachments and grazing, thereby threatening the survival of the flora and fauna of the area.

Activists, who were party for the campaign to save Kurinji, discussed the challenges before the State in protecting the kurinji habitat (shoal forests) at a seminar organised in connection with the neelakurinji festival here on Sunday.

G. Rajkumar of the Save Kurinji Campaign Council said that the conservation of the habitat could not be achieved without mass support. Protection of the pockets of its habitat alone would not ensure their conservation.

K. Kunhikrishnan, University College, Thiruvananthapuram, said that even the branch of a shola tree was an ecosystem. The importance of sholas was not yet being fully grasped by the people.

S. Sankar, scientist at the Kerala Forest Research Institute, suggested that additional areas for conservation should be prioritised immediately. More data needed to be collected for that.

He also suggested that abandoned plantations should be developed as a carbon sink.

C. J. John of Palani Hills Conservation Council said that a lot of lost grasslands could eventually be reclaimed and rebuilt.

However, clearing the areas of plantations, especially wattle, would need time and patience.

R. Ajayan, Assistant Private Secretary to the Forest Minister, called upon environmental activists to participate in the formulation of the forthcoming forest policy by giving their comments.

M. K. Prasad inaugurated the seminar.

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Urgent steps needed to save Nilgiri tahrs

The Hindu, September 15, 2006

Munnar: How many Nilgiri tahrs are there in the wild? According to a paper presented at the fourth World Congress on Mountain Ungulates, the present population of the Nilgiri tahr is likely to be much lower than what is generally believed. The paper, presented by R.J. Ranjit, P.S. Easa, K. Ramkumar, Pratheesh C. Mammen and Mohan Alembath, states that the long quoted figures of 2,000-2,500 animals in the wild seem to be an overestimation.

Limited presence

The Nilgiri tahr is among the few species of mountain goats that have adapted to a cold and wet tropical environment. Today, the endemic and endangered tahr is limited to a very small geographical area that does not exceed five per cent of the Western Ghats. The reason for this rather local distribution is the preference for a habitat that is predominantly of grassland sheltered by steep rocky cliff that receives over 1,500 mm of rainfall annually and enjoys dry season. Such a tropical habitat is restricted to just six or seven high altitude landscapes of the south Western Ghats.

The current geographical range of the tahr is less than 400 km north-south, between the Nilgiri Hills and Kanyakumari Hills in the Western Ghats. Over the short range and within the six identified tahr landscapes, 18 locations continue to support small to large populations of the tahr. Local populations vary in size between 30 and 500 animals. Estimates made at various times during the last 30 years have placed the population between 2,000 and 2,500.

Call for research

According to A.J.T. Johnsingh of the Nature Conservation Society, research should be conducted in many more species that have been left uncovered. India's rich diversity of mountain ungulates includes 19 species, belonging to 12 genera, four families and two orders. The quantum of ecological research on the animals varies, with only five species being relatively well studied. In general, species that are rare and occur in physically or administratively inaccessible areas have been less researched.

Conservation also varies with six species numbering less than 1,000 and three between 1,000 and 2,000.

Fragmented population

In his plenary talk, Dr. Johnsingh said the Tibetan gazelle with a fragmented population of less than 200 in Ladakh and North Sikkim was on the verge of extinction. The species is in need of urgent participatory species recovery programme. Listing out the ungulates that face threat in India, Dr. Johnsingh said conservation requisites for the mountain ungulates differ.

International cooperation can help safeguard many of the species.

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Threatened ungulates in focus

Anand Parthasarathy
TheHindu, September 12, 2006

An international conference in Munnar on the Nilgiri tahr and its cousins

They are sometimes horned, always hooved and herbivorous. They graze the slippery slopes of the world's hilly, and occasionally snow-covered, grasslands. They form a global family of mammals known as ungulates that is under increasing threat from war, encroachment or human greed.

For three days from September 13, over 100 naturalists from a dozen nations will meet at Munnar, Kerala, home to arguably the best conserved of the Indian ungulates the Nilgiri tahr.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is holding the World Congress on Mountain Ungulates (WCMU), the fourth since 1989 and the first in Asia, near the Eravikulam National Park. The park, with its tropical grassland ecosystem, is today home to over 700 of the 2,000-odd tahr that are in the Anamalai region of the Western Ghats.

"Conservation efforts are afoot in over 20 countries and they target such diverse ungulates like the Tibetan gazelle and the yak in Ladakh; the Iberian Ibex in Portugal; and its Nubian cousin in Yemen; the Alpine chamois in Italy and Switzerland; the Rocky Mountain goat of Canada and the U.S. and the Korean goral," explains Mohan Alembath, president of the Nilgiri Tahr Trust.

He is a conservationist who served the Kerala Forest Department until 2001. During a nine-year tenure as Wild Life Warden, he helped make Eravikulam one of the rare success stories in conservation this country has seen.

The event is hosted by the Munnar-based High Range Wildlife and Environment Preservation Association, largely staffed by nature-loving members of the Tata Tea plantations that dominate the Kannan Devan Hills.

Partnership

The partnership between the Association and the State Forest Department has been a model of public-private cooperation in conservation.

The delegates will be able to assess the results first-hand: the tahr's calving season is just over and the fresh count is just in. Their visit also coincides with the 12-yearly flowering of the neela kurinji, which is turning the Munnar hills into a blue blaze of colour.

Discussions

The discussions will include the need to create a Pamir Peace Park where China, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, to help conserve the Marco Polo sheep now less than 6,000 in number.

It will discuss why the Swedish moose is under threat from its most formidable predator, the European brown bear.

It will consider what the disturbed environment in Kashmir is doing to the lifestyle and very existence of the Kashmir stag or hangul.

Hopefully, the exchange of experience and results will help the world's hooved grazers cling on a mite more firmly to their precarious and increasingly threatened grazing lands.

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