The Hindu : Karnataka News : Regenerating forests in Kudremukh

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 22, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

Regenerating forests in Kudremukh

By M. Raghuram

A computer-generated map showing the three zones of Kudremukh National Park

MANGALORE, JAN. 21. It is a only matter of time before Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd. (KIOCL) winds up operations in the Kudremukh mines area in the Western Ghats. The closure of the mines is just 11 months away as per the deadline set by the Supreme Court Order of 2001.

The order has also specified that the mined area should be restored and forests and the green belt regenerated before the company stops operations in the area.

However, conservationists feel that since there is no concrete plan yet by the company, regenerating the forest area, grasslands and the shola forests that have been destroyed by large-scale mining in the past 30 years will be difficult.

Special paper

Conservationists Kota Ullas Karanth and Niren Jain have brought out a special paper, "Suggestions for the Future Management Plan of Kudremukh National Park," on the issue.

The paper suggests that wildlife areas should be zoned for effective management. They say that it is important to prioritise efforts at regeneration by keeping a prime area in the reserve completely free of human interference.

Protected areas should also be zoned for specific species management, facilitating eco-tourism, providing buffer areas around the park and diverting direct biotic interference in the national park area to areas outside the park.

Three zones

The conservationists feel that there should be three zones — core, tourism and buffer zones. The core zone should have at least 75 per cent of the best areas of the park and it must either be sealed off from human interference or highly regulated for human entry.

The first phase of the core zone should be formed around the Kudremukh peak, where very few revenue enclosures exist. This will consolidate a prime wildlife habitat of around 120 sq. km. The second phase should be around the Heggon Estate and Valkunji.

The tourism zone should be created around the revenue enclosure of the Kudremukh mining township where infrastructure for accommodation and other ancillary facilities are already available for visitors.

Some parts of the highways passing through the park can also be declared part of the tourism area and it could be used to create awareness on the status of wildlife and the need to protect them.

Ecologically sensitive

The buffer zone should be created as a 1-km belt outside the boundary of the national park. This area should also be declared an ecologically sensitive zone under the Environment Protection Act.

The buffer zone outside the national park should be afforested to provide the biomass requirement of the local people, the paper suggests. This will remove the pressure on natural forests.

Ore surface mining and mine reclamation has had a significant impact on the landscape of the entire Western Ghats region. Since the country is yet to form a cohesive Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act on the lines of those in Western countries, mining companies must make an effort to create a diverse, effective, and permanent vegetative cover of the same seasonal variety and native to the area as was destroyed during mining operations.

Self-sustained

The re-establishment of a self-sustaining ecosystem on reclaimed mines can help in maintaining native wildlife populations while providing other valuable ecosystem services such as erosion control, carbon sequestration, timber production, and improving the quality of water.

The paper also states that the species list of wildlife in the park should be based on information collected by qualified biologists, and institutions and wildlife researchers should conduct studies and regularly update this inventory.

The park authorities should switch from the current census and count-based approach to modern sampling methods based approaches that are more scientific and internationally accepted.

The company should be given the responsibility of recovering forests in run-down mine areas. However, the paper has also indicated that it will take at least three years to achieve full regeneration of vegetation.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka