Wildlife and Nature Conservation - Centre for Ecological Sciences

personnel themselves as has been the case in the past, but will prevent poaching andhabitat degradation by others, prevent illegal transit of wildlife products and will provideperiodic data to the wildlife authorities concerned as to the status and distribution of alarge number of taxa about which very little is known. Similarly, if sensitized, the AirForce and the Navy could also be of invaluable help in this regard, to both carry outsurveys in remote areas and to prevent illegal traffic in wildlife products.The Army has set up a special unit called the Environment and Ecology Cell, which dealswith conservation aspects. It has been in touch with the MoEF for a number of years. Itwould be appropriate if MoEF, the cell and concerned State Governments work outcollaborative projects in different selected areas for long-term conservation efforts,involving strict protection of areas and species, especially endangered species, their statussurveys, and the prevention of the passage of illegal wildlife trade.The Indian Army today is one of the largest landholders in the country withestablishments located in different ecosystems and biogeographic zones. Their locations,deployment, and nature of duty, binds them with land and nature. Today, the real estateof the Army comprises 62 cantonments, 192 military stations, depots/trainingestablishments, maneuver areas, firing ranges and military farms.The Indian Army is deployed in many areas rich in ecological diversity, like the Rann ofKutch, the Thar Desert, the length and breadth of the Himalaya, the tropical rain forestsof northeast India, the Western Ghats and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This and thefact that the bulk of the manpower is recruited from rural areas, gives the jawan an edgein understanding nature and the intricate web of life. The very organizational structure,training, motivation, discipline inter-communications and mobility, make the Armyideally suited for environmental protection, when not otherwise employed on the primetask of national security.9.17 Recommendations[111] A serious attempt must be made to rationalize protected area boundaries byimplementing the recommendations of the committees appointed for this purposeearlier and taking up work in states where there may be no such reports. Theleadership and funds must come from Ministry of Environment and Forests. Inlieu of the areas that would be excised from the protected areas in pursuance ofthis effort, the states on their part would add other larger human settlement-freehabitats to the protected areas concerned, or to others, within their states. Theremust be a quid pro quo, with the approval of the Supreme Court. By this exercise,a large number of human settlements on the periphery of the protected areascould be excluded, some huge protected areas which are only on paper like theSolapur Sanctuary in Maharashtra and the National Chambal Sanctuary betweenRajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, could be made practical and effective, assmaller sized protected areas. In lieu, other larger trouble-free areas could beadded to the protected area system, the caveat being that dereservation ofinhabited areas from protected areas to be only done after the areas chosen to beadded to the protected area system in lieu of those dereservations, would be firstnotified as protected areas[112] In keeping with the Supreme Court directives, after undertaking a rationalizationof park/sanctuary boundaries, those rights that need to be acquired should beacquired and those rights in sanctuaries that can be allowed to be exercised137