The felling of over 6,000 trees to construct buildings for “eco-tourism” at the Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand is a “classic case” of nexus between politicians and officials to make short-term commercial gains at the cost of the environment, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.
The Court said it was “amazed at the audacity” of former Uttarakhand Forest Minister and Congress leader Harak Singh Rawat and ex-Divisional Forest Officer Kishan Chand for giving the forest and wildlife conservation laws a complete go-by and throwing the public trust doctrine “into the dustbin”.
“The present case depicts a sorry state of affairs of human greed devastating one of the most celebrated abodes of tigers i.e. the Corbett Tiger Reserve,” a three-judge Bench headed by Justice B.R. Gavai observed. Uttarakhand could not “run away” from its responsibility to restore the forest, the bench added.
The Court also directed the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to form a specialised committee to study and recommend whether tiger safaris should be permitted in the buffer or fringe areas of a tiger reserve. The proposed specialised committee of the Ministry would include representatives of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), Wildlife Institute of India, Central Empowered Committee, and a Joint Secretary from the Ministry. “The presence of tigers in the forests is an indicator of the well-being of the ecosystem. Unless steps are taken for the protection of tigers, the ecosystem which revolves around tigers cannot be protected… Events like illegal construction and illicit felling of trees like the one in Corbett cannot be ignored,” Justice Gavai observed in the judgment.
Existing safaris, like the one in Pakhro zone at Corbett, need not be disturbed, the Court said. At the same time, it also directed the Uttarakhand government to establish an animal rescue centre in the vicinity of the safari.
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