Wildlife and Nature Conservation - Centre for Ecological Sciences

asic facilities to the people on the other, has to be approached on several fronts. There isan increasing realization amongst the people living in the PAs that as long as they residein the PAs there will always be conflict and their access to the market, availability ofgoods and services like transport, medical facilities and education, will always behampered. Many forest communities are willing to move out of such areas if they aregiven adequate alternative land and other means of livelihood.Although ‘Protected Areas’ in the form of National Parks, Sanctuaries and Closed Areaswere in existence in the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, yet statutorily “ProtectedAreas” have been defined only in 2002 through an amendment in the Wild Life(Protection) Act, 1972. The relevant provision reads as follows: “(24A) “Protected area”means a national park, a sanctuary, a conservation reserve or a community reservenotified under sections 18, 35, 36A and 36C of the Act;’ Further, the amendment alsosubstituted the heading in Chapter IV i.e. “SANCTUARIES, NATIONAL PARK ANDCLOSED AREAS”, for ‘PROTECTED AREAS’. The concept of protected areas as definedin the Act does not include administrative categories such as Biosphere Reserves, TigerReserves and Elephant Reserves.Further, new PAs are getting increasingly difficult to form. The reasons for the same are:1. Delayed procedure for the settlement of rights, where required.2. In recent years, a PA has become politically and socially unpopular due to the fearof displacement, denial of access to bio-resources, etc., especially since thedegradation of non-PA areas has left the PAs with more bio-resources incomparison with the neighbouring forests.3. The protection afforded in PAs has also led to an increase in animal populationswithin PAs, which has led to greater raids on neighbouring crops and livestockand thus greater man-animal conflicts.The creation of Protected Areas are only taking place to compensate for the loss offorests due to developmental projects and are specifically insisted upon in ClearanceConditions of the Ministry of Environment and Forests e.g., the clearance condition ofthe Lower Subansari, which recommended for the catchments area of the Dam to bedeclared as a National Park, and the Human River Project adjoining Tadoba AndheriTiger Reserve wherein submerged area is to be declared as Sanctuary while submergingprime Tiger Corridor. The clearance of the Narmada Sagar Project in Madhya Pradeshalso lays down the setting up of PAs in adjacent forests, which the State has not fulfilledso far.9.6 Achieving Linkages between the PA systemCorridors or linkages between protected habitats must be considered a vital conservationneed for biodiversity conservation and conflict reduction mechanism. Such corridors orlinkages must be planned keeping in mind animal migrations or movements,representations of ecological gradients between habitats, the needs of local communitiesas well as planned developmental projects. A number of such areas have been identifiedand prioritized. For example the Wildlife Trust of India and the Asian Elephant Researchand Conservation Centre have recently brought out a publication identifying all theimportant Elephant Corridors of India, which has been ratified by State Forest125