The man-animal conflict in Adilabad has turned piquant with both sides unrelentingly destroying the other with the government remaining a mute spectator. As many as nine persons have lost their lives and nearly 100 others injured in wild animal attacks since 2009-2010, while several animals have been killed by farmers in an effort to save their crops.
Not until long ago, Adilabad had one of the country’s highest spread of green cover with 43 per cent of its 16,000 sq km of area covered with trees. It also boasted of a healthy population of wild animals with as many as 30 tigers on top of the food chain, as reported about 30 years back.
The current population, minus the tigers, in the wild, is a low 8,814 including 3,313 wild boars. At least three human deaths were caused by wild boar attacks in recent years.
Illegal decimation of trees during the last three decades has depleted over 50 per cent of the green cover according to independent estimates, giving rise to the problematic situation. As encroachments by humans looking to increase agriculture production (claims for issue of rights on over 2 lakh acres of forest land were received by the government) has shrunk natural habitat, wild animals venture out searching for fodder.
Another major aspect of the issue is the ever increasing incidence of cattle grazing in jungles. The phenomenon has resulted in loss of huge extent of natural pastures thereby depriving wild herbivores of precious fodder.
The government has since 2009-2010 paid compensation of over Rs. 62.5 lakh in claims of deaths and injuries due to wild animal attacks and loss of cattle (153) and crop. “We are settling claims for compensation at a faster rate now in order to discourage farmers from setting up traps for wild animals such as putting up illegally electrified fencing around their fields,” points out Adilabad Chief Conservator of Forests, T.P. Thimma Reddy, as he talks of the efforts being made by the government to reduce the man-animal conflict.
The immediate solution to the man-animal conflict lies in the protection of the forest cover. “Yes, we are also taking up plantation of local varieties of trees so that forest communities restart their dependence on non-timber forest produce rather than depending upon timber in the forests for a livelihood,” Mr. Thimma Reddy observes.
