In a boost for wildlife conservation and restocking of tigers in the Sahyadri tiger project, the state government has notified a conservation reserve at Tillari in Sindhudurg district.
This patch of evergreen forests is located in the lap of the Western Ghats on the cusp of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa. The conservation reserve, which will cover a 29.53 sq km (2,953.377 hectare) tract, and enhance the status of the habitat, was notified by the state government on Monday.
Tillari has presence of breeding tigers and can serve as a source population for the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve, which lacks resident tigers. It also has elephants, sloth bears, crocodiles, ungulates, herpetofauna, and black panthers (melanistic leopards) like Bagheera from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book.’ Earlier, Tillari came under the jurisdiction of the Sawantwadi territorial forest division. The conversion of the forests into a protected area, will enable habitat development and conservation. The 10 villages in Dodamarg taluka will also get a sustainable livelihood model through means like eco-tourism.
However, forest department officials and conservationists admit this is only a battle halfwon. The department planned to notify a 57 sq.km area as a wildlife sanctuary, but this proposal had run into opposition from a lobby of local politicians and pineapple and rubber planters. “The conservation reserve will ensure the implementation of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, but there is no precedent of a conservation reserve having an eco-sensitive zone like a wildlife sanctuary does,” said a senior forest department official.
However, the notification of a conservation reserve will ensure that land use conversions are streamlined. The official said that the conservation reserve will strengthen the wildlife corridor between the Sahyadri tiger project and the tiger source populations in Goa and Karnataka, helping repopulate the area with tigers.
“A comprehensive management plan will be drawn up and dedicated manpower will be deployed in the habitat for protection,” he explained. A 2013 rapid assessment of bio-diversity in 25 villages in Dodamarg and Sawantwadi, had drawn up an exhaustive list of species of mammals, birds, butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies, amphibians, reptiles, spiders and invertebrates
