The Forest Department has come under flak for diluting the original proposals of the Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ) around Nagarahole National Park (NNP) as evident in the draft notification which was issued in July this year.
While the original proposal has been accepted without much change and has been welcomed, the commercial establishment of hotels and resorts which has been brought under ‘regulated’ category in the draft notification is a bone of contention. The original proposal had flagged it under the ‘prohibited’ category and wanted a blanket ban on hotels and resorts in the ESZ.
Though the draft notification states that no new commercial hotels and resorts shall be permitted within 1 km of the boundary of the protected area or up to the extent of the ESZ, it adds “except for small temporary structures for eco-tourism activities.” “This will pave the way for mushrooming of resorts and hotels and the department will be under pressure from the politicians to accord permission and set a precedent,” said a senior forest department official.
There is huge demand for diluting the ESZ norms and changing the land-use pattern along the protected areas in Kodagu. This was also evident in the Kodagu ZP discussions on Saturday where Forest Minister B. Ramanath Rai expressed his opposition to the one km ESZ boundary.
K.S. Sudheer, of Voice for Wildlife, said the authorities have tried to strike a balance between the livelihood imperatives of the people in the ESZ and wildlife conservation. “However, this was bound to escalate conflicts in the future,” he added.
A senior official pointed out that there is a blanket ban on establishment of new hotels and resorts in the notified ESZ of Bandipur though the forests are contiguous and the landscape is the same. “But the pressure on forest around Nagarahole is higher than in Bandipur and hence there was no reason to remove resorts and hotels from prohibited category to regulated category,” said the official fearing a spurt in home stays and resorts in the ESZ or its periphery.
Kodagu has four protected areas including Nagarahole, Brahamagiri, Talacauvery and Pushpagiri wildlife sanctuaries and while a section of the NGOs are supportive of the ESZ, it was not backed by the elected representatives and the public at large. However, the district has borne the brunt of human-animal conflict in recent times. There were nine deaths during 2016-17, 13 in 2015-16 and eight in 2014-15. Six elephants were electrocuted this June.
There are concerns that the politicians-bureaucrat-contractor nexus seeking permission for resorts and hotels will only increase and defeat the purpose of the ESZ. If conflicts — of which there was no dearth in Kodagu — escalate, it will be a no-win situation for both humans and animals.
