The State Cabinet on Thursday decided to recommend the Centre on demarcation of Ecologically Sensitive Zones (ESZ) around 31 protected areas in Karnataka.
The Cabinet has resolved that the 31 national parks (NP) and wildlife sanctuaries (WLS) will have varied extent of ESZ. This may vary from 100 meters to one or two kilometers. The Forest department has already notified ESZ around Bandipur National Park.
Briefing the media after the Cabinet meeting, Law Minister T B Jayachandra said the 31 protected areas were finalised after detailed discussions by the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Delineation of ESZ around NPs and WLSs formed by the government. “The prime agenda was to ensure that the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) will not set a default ESZ of 10 kilometers and cause concern for the livelihood and mobility of people living around protected areas. We have decided to dispatch this list to the MoEF. The final decision will be taken by the Centre in this regard,” he said.
The 30 protected areas include Bannerghatta National Park, Nagarhole National Park, Kudremukh National Park, Anshi National Park, and wildlife sanctuaries including Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, Bhadra WLS, BRT WLS, etc. While the ESZ has been placed at one or two kilometers for most NPs and WLSs, Brahmagiri, Pushpagiri and Talacauvery WLSs in Kodagu district have a buffer zone of only 100 meters.
Primarily encompassing large portions of the district of Kodagu, Jayachandra said the government wanted a zero buffer zone. “However, the MoEF had said that zero meters of buffer zone will not be accepted. Hence, we have decided to give only a 100 meters buffer zone,” he said.
Delineation of some of the boundaries by the State government stands to be controversial, as only 100 meters around the entire Kanakapura taluk in Ramanagar district housing Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary has been notified as ESZ. The same is the case for five villages around the Ranebennur Blackbuck Sanctuary in Haveri. Both these areas are well known quarrying and mining hubs.
According to sources, the decision was taken following recommendations by certain ministers, who are also part of the cabinet sub-committee. The government has also decided to notify only 100 meters around 15 villages around Bannerghatta Biological Park as ESZ, owing to large scale development activities and habitations around it.
Madan Gopal, Additional Chief Secretary, Forests, said that after holding a series of consultations with the locals around the protected areas, the sub-committee had decided to go for site specific demarcation of ESZ. “Wherever there are private lands, it has been decided to restrict the boundary to 100 meters. However, in complete forest areas, between 2 km to 10 km will be marked as ESZ,” he added.