PANJIM: Barely 48 hours after the final arguments in High Court on a PIL by Goa Foundation, seeking direction to declare the Cotigao Mhadei complex a Tiger Reserve, the State Wild Life Board rejected a proposal which is over seven years old, to declare the complex a Tiger Reserve.
Documents in possession of O Heraldo indicate that the State Forest Department’s Wildlife and Eco-Tourism division had “confirmed” records of tigers in the North Eastern parts of the Mhadei forests in a note on March 23, 2018.
Therefore the Goa Government and Forest Department’s “excuse” for refusing to declare the area as a Tiger Reserve by saying that the tigers in this Forest complex are migratory in nature, contradicts its own Forest Department’s office note dated March 23 2018 in response to the Chief Minister’s desire to furnish him (the) details(s) about (the) proposal of (a) Tiger Reserve.
How the Forest Dept had laid out a detailed plan to prepare for the declaration of the Mhadei Cotigao Forest complex as a Tiger Reserve
Point 5 of that note (see a copy of that note with this story package) is headlined “Current situation in Goa” and states, “The entire stretch of Protected Area Network of Goa existing (exists*) along the Western Ghats. Due to better protection, habitat improvement and monitoring using technology such as camera traps, we have now confirmed records of tiger(s) in (the) North-eastern parts.”
Moreover, a map is shown to demarcate the contiguous forest habitat as Core and buffer zones of the proposed Tiger Reserve Protected Area, the details of human habitation/villages to be a part of these areas and relocation of villages was earmarked.
Relocation of areas with large habitation was avoided
Point 6 of the note stated, ‘The locations in Protected Areas having large habitations have been decided to be left out from Proposed Tiger Reserve Areas whereas smaller habitations have been included… for the purpose of relocation with the option of a one-time package without rehabilitation or through the full process of rehabilitation relocation.
The note in the file was sent to the Chief Wildlife Warden on March 23 2018. The fact the process was halted and no decision was taken for over five years, till the abrupt rejection of the original letter, dated March 31, 2016, of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests to the Goa Forest Department to send a proposal for a Tiger Reserve, tells a telling story. That people in the highest corridors of power in Goa simply did not want the Mhadei forests to become a protected Tiger Reserve.
