Centre should decide on Goa as tiger reserve: Filipe Neri

PANJIM, JUNE 4
On the World Environment Day, the environmentalists continue to find it a distant dream to get state’s wildlife sanctuaries declared as a tiger habitat, thanks to the lack of a strong political will.
While environmentalists have been lobbying hard to get the state declared as tiger reserves, the State Forest Minister Filipe Neri Rodrigues brushed aside his responsibility bluntly saying “it’s for the Centre to declare state as tiger reserve”.
Rodrigues, who had earlier claimed that the Union forest ministry would give its verdict on tiger reserves only after the state forest department submits the proposal to declare Goa’s wildlife sanctuaries as tiger habitat, today, sung a different tune, expectedly.
“We are not the concern authority. The Union ministry has their own authorities who look after the tiger reserves across the country. The authorities have to come down here and survey and its upto them to call it a reserve or not,” minister told Herald over a phone.
Even a political master intend to keep the issue on backburner, the recent wildlife census has reinforced the belief that the tiger do exist in the state’s wild. The week long census reported various indirect evidences of tiger in sanctuaries like Mollem, Cotigao and Mhadei, where a tiger was allegedly poached by Majik community people in February, 2009.
Environmentalist, Rajendra Kerkar, just before the census in April, 2010 had rightly predicted that the animal census will give the clear picture of tiger presence in the state.
Kerkar said that the protection of sanctuaries like Mhadei, Netravali and Bhagwan Mahaveer will provide continuous corridor to this wild animal connecting neighbouring Maharashtra and Karnataka states.
He said that the demand to declare Mhadei wildlife sanctuary as tiger reserve exists since 1999 but the state government does not care about it.
Meanwhile, environmentalist Nirmal Kulkarni, known for his eco-columns in newspapers, offered no comments when this reporter contacted him.
“It’s useless to comment….we are been fighting for long…no use,” he said in a disgust.
Along with environmentalists, NGO’s like Nisarga, Mission Green, Goa Foundation, and others are always pressing for declaration of these sanctuaries as tiger reserves so that the mining companies are kept at a distance from where even if they want, they can’t peep into it.
However, the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (APCCF) Dr Shashi Kumar feels it’s irrelevant to link mining with tiger reserves.
“If the situation demands then we might put a proposal before the centre to declare our wildlife sanctuaries as tiger reserves for tiger protection,” he said.
“But, there need to be proper evidences to prove it. The recent census has shown some indirect evidences but has not given the clear picture. The tigers that we see here, is just the reason of overflowing population from neighbouring states,” Dr Kumar maintained.
In January, 2010, an e-petition seeking Goa’s Mhadei wildlife sanctuary to be declared as a tiger habitat was sent to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and to the union forest minister Jayram Ramesh by NGO called Mission Green.
Tallulha D’Silva, founder member of Mission Green in the petition had explained that the declaration of Mhadei wildlife sanctuary as a tiger habitat will attract better forest management and stringent jungle rules in the state.
The forest department records confirmed that the census held in 2002 had counted presence of four tigers in the state based on pugmarks and other related signs of the wild beast.