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Strategy
Protected Area
Network in India
Development and History
The protection of wildlife has a long tradition in Indian
history. Wise use of natural resources was a prerequisite for many
hunter-gatherer societies which date back to at least 6000 BC.
Extensive clearance of forests accompanied the advance of
agricultural and pastoral societies in subsequent millennia, but an
awareness of the need for ecological prudence emerged and many
so-called pagan nature conservation practices were retained. As more
and more land became settled or cultivated, so these hunting
reserves increasingly became refuges for wildlife. Many of these
reserves were subsequently declared as national parks or
sanctuaries, mostly after Independence in 1947. Examples include Gir
in Gujarat, Dachigam in Jammu & Kashmir, Bandipur in Karnataka,
Eravikulum in Kerala, Madhav (now Shivpuri) in Madhya Pradesh,
Simlipal in Orissa, and Keoladeo, Ranthambore and Sariska in
Rajasthan.
Wildlife, together with forestry, has traditionally been managed
under a single administrative organisation within the forest
departments of each state or union territory, with the role of
central government being mainly advisory. There have been two recent
developments. First, the Wildlife (Protection) Act has provided for
the creation of posts of chief wildlife wardens and wildlife wardens
in the states to exercise statutory powers under the Act. Under this
Act, it is also mandatory for the states to set up state wildlife
advisory boards. Secondly the inclusion of protection of wild
animals and birds in the concurrent list of the constitution, has
proved the union with some legislative control over the states in
the conservation of wildlife (Pillai, 1982). The situation has since
improved, all states and union territories with national parks or
sanctuaries having set up wildlife wings.
The adoption of a National Policy for Wildlife Conservation in
1970 and the enactment of the Wildlife (Protection) Act in 1972 lead
to a significant growth in the protected areas network, from 5
national parks and 60 sanctuaries to 69 and 410 respectively, in
1990 (Panwar, 1990).
The network was further strengthened by a number of national
conservation projects, notably Project Tiger, initiated in April
1973 by the Government of India with support from WWF (IBWL, 1972;
Panwar, 1982), and the crocodile Breeding and Management Project,
launched on 1 April, 1975 with technical assistance from UNDP/FAO
(Bustard, 1982).
Protected Areas of the Western Ghats
The Western Ghats are a chain of highlands running along the
western edge of the Indian subcontinent, from Bombay south to the
southern tip of the peninsula, through the states of Maharashtra,
Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Covering an estimated area of
159,000 sq. km, the Western Ghats are an area of exceptional
biological diversity and conservation interest, and are "one of
the major Tropical Evergreen Forest regions in India" (Rodgers
and Panwar, 1988). As the zone has already lost a large part of its
original forest cover (although timber extraction from the evergreen
reserve forests in Kerala and Karnataka has now been halted) it must
rank as a region of great conservation concern. The small remaining
extent of natural forest, coupled with exceptional biological
richness and ever increasing levels of threat (agriculture,
reservoir flooding plantations, logging and over exploitation), are
factors which necessitate major conservation inputs."
There are currently seven national parks in the Western Ghats
with a total area of 2,073 sq. km (equivalent to 1.3% of the region)
and 39 wildlife sanctuaries covering an area of about 13,862 sq. km
(8.1%). The management status of the wildlife sanctuaries in this
part of India varies enormously. Tamil Nadu's Nilgiri wildlife
sanctuary, for example, has no human inhabitants, small abandoned
plantation areas and no produce exploitation, while the Parambikulam
wildlife sanctuary in Kerala includes considerable areas of
commercial plantations and privately owned estates with heavy
resource exploitation.
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