PORVORIM: In an effort to reduce the growing human-animal conflict, the State government has decided to rehabilitate the families, which are living in the interior of wildlife sanctuaries along with demarcating the borders.
This was announced by Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant in the House on Wednesday.
While ruling out the possibility of poaching in the recent tiger killing case, Sawant said that the case is under investigation and the viscera report is awaited.
He added that there are many villages in and around the six wildlife sanctuaries (WLS) and therefore, the human-animal conflict is a normal phenomenon.
“There has been increase in the movement of tigers in the forests of Goa. Tiger population in Goa migrates between Goa and adjoining States of Karnataka and Maharashtra,” he said, while adding that the local forest officials are in touch with their counterparts to monitor the movement of tigers and protection.
Sawant informed that the government has already initiated the process to rehabilitate the families, residing in the protected areas.
“We have identified few families, apart from the village areas, which are living in the interior of WLS. With their consent, we are ready to rehabilitate them and provide all the required facilities,” he said.
Speaking during the Calling Attention Motion, the Chief Minister added that despite the areas being declared as wildlife sanctuaries, the boundaries have not been demarcated.
“We will seek help from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change (MOEF&CC) to demarcate the boundaries,” he stated.
A Calling Attention on tiger killings was jointly moved by Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat, Goa Forward Party (GFP) MLAs Vijai Sardesai, Jayesh Salgaonkar, Vinod Palyekar, Independent MLA Rohan Khaunte, MGP MLA Ramakrishna Dhavalikar, Congress MLA Alexio Reginaldo Lourenco and BJP MLA Pravin Zantye.
Sawant said that the tiger killing is suspected to be a case of revenge killing through poisoning, as the tigers had killed few cattle belonging to the villagers and that five arrested suspects had confessed.
The MLAs charged negligence on part of the government in safeguarding the lives of tiger and residents of the area by tackling the issue of human-wildlife conflict.
The MLAs sought to know government’s failure to consider the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary as a tiger reserve, as tigers’ presence in the wild is a known fact.
While Sardesai demanded a CBI inquiry into the tiger killing case, Khaunte demanded setting up of a tiger protection force to ensure tiger killing cases are not repeated.
