searchs Meetingstrippeddevi a
searche
ti Mentira gs
ri
p Meetingstrippeddevi d Search ewww.zhicom.cnisearch oe Label 
t Nude asearchk Meetingstrippeddevi 
n B1bd1a e 2010 c Label s
Nude osearch searchlsearcha 2010 -searchesandee%20westgate%20%CA%D3%C6%B5l Search nsearch? Label
Madhya Pradesh has India's second largest area under Sal (Shorea robusta) tree cover. The sal heart-wood borer infestation has been endemic to the districts of Mandla and Balaghat. Several studies in the past have suggested measures to control and prevent the epidemic caused by the beetles. Unfortunately, the dominant opinion amongst forest officials has been to clear-fell sal forests in a vast area; reportedly several hundred thousand trees have already been cut, despite environmentalists and some experts suggesting that this is not necessary.
The then Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Saifuddin Soz halted all felling operations and constituted a task force in January 1998 to go into the matter. According to some of the non-governmental members, the task force worked in a rather hasty and non-participatory manner, and was not amenable to the views of these members, who had to send a dissenting note to the Minister. In a report specific to two protected areas in the area, Kanha National Park and Phen Sanctuary, a subgroup of the task force reported that a very small percentage of trees here were affected, that they were mostly the ones already defective and weak, and that a number of trees already felled did not show any signs of borer attack. They also suggested that beetle catching by trap-tree operations has been neglected in the past, perhaps causing the present epidemic in some areas.
There was, instead of large-scale felling, a need for restoration of damage in earlier clearfelled areas, a multi-disciplinary study to assess the problem, strengthening corridors between protected areas (in particular Kanha National Park and Phen Sanctuary), and allowing natural controls to take effect as they have in the past when such epidemics have hit sal forests.
Contact: P.K. Sen, Director, Project Tiger, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Annexe No. 5, Bikaner House, Shahjahan Road, New Delhi 110 003. For a dissenting note to the official task force report, contact: Utkarsh Ghate, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012. Tel: 91-80-334 0985; Fax: 331 5428; Email: utkarsh@ces.iisc.ernet.in.
Source: See What's Available?, below.
MAHARASHTRA
Several state-wide meetings and activities
Activity relating to protected areas in Maharashtra has considerably stepped up:
1. A group of about 25 wildlife conservationists, Government officials and media persons met in November 1997, at Kolkhas, Melghat Tiger Reserve, Dist. Amravati, Maharashtra. This meeting was called by the Mobile Tiger Conservation Action Force of the Nature Conservation Society of Amravati (NCSA), in an attempt to explore new working policies for the protection and conservation of wildlife and forests in Central India. A summary of the discussions:
(i) Pench National Park (Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh): The residents of the Todladoh colony (M.P.) continue fishing in the reservoir, rejecting alternate suggestions being provided to them by the Forest Department. Commercial fishing too is carried on in violation to the directives of the Supreme Court This should be contested in the Supreme Court and evidence in the form of video recordings and photographs should be provided. Media persons have offered to provide support against illegal fishing in Totaladoh reservoir.
(ii) New PAs in Vidarbha : The seven new sanctuaries created in the Vidarbha region require special protection from grazing. Sanctuaries such as the Ambabarawa and Pal are facing a tremendous problem due to the influx of thousands of migratory sheep. There appears to be a nexus among some politicians, forest officials and the sheep owners. An Ordinance to deal with this needs to be developed.
(iii) Proposed PAs: A decision regarding the conversion of five more areas into protected areas is suggested. The areas include Pohara Malkhed, Mahendri (Dist. Amravati), Mansinghdeo (Nagpur), Lonar and Budhaneshwar Girda (Buldhana).
(iv) The Bhingara forest near Dist. Buldhana which links Ambabawara and Yawal (Pal) Sanctuaries is also facing the problem of land encroachment by influx of tribals from M.P. The Maharashtra government should take steps to curb this influx.
(v) Melghat Tiger Project: Participants strongly opposed the Maharashtra government's decision of deleting certain areas from the Melghat Sanctuary. This deletion, they feared, is for the purpose of the Rs. 1,400 crore Upper Tapi Irrigation Project.
(vi) A newly created Aurangabad Wildlife Division was suggested to control the biotic pressure and divert traffic from the road passing through the Gautala Sanctuary and to specify the boundaries of the Jayakwadi Bird Sanctuary.
Additional recommendations that came forth in the meeting include :
(i) NCSA would immediately conduct a village study in Melghat for collecting information and the peoples' opinions.
(ii) Traffic should be banned on the Paratwada Dharani road at/during the night.
(iii) The water contribution data (by rivers and forest in Melghat) should be used by the Tiger Project Office to focus on the Tiger Reserve as a water conservation/recharging unit.
(iv) Joint patrolling of the M.P.- Maharashtra border area is essential.
(v) A monthly inspection should be made in core areas of PAs, by a committee appointed by the Forest Department, comprising journalists, lawyers, NGOs and nature lovers.
(vi) The next meeting of the State Wildlife Advisory Board should be held in the Vidarbha region to give the PAs here more attention.
Contact: Kishore Rithe, Nature Conservation Society - Amravati, Pratishtha, Bharat Nagar, Akoli Road, Nr. Sainagar, Amravati 444 605, Maharashtra. Tel: 91-721-672 359.
2. A meeting on people and protected areas of Maharashtra, earlier scheduled for 16-18 January, has been postponed. The meeting, being organised by the Sahbhagi Vanjivan Sanwardhan Samanvay, Maharashtra, is being held at Sevagram, Wardha. Issues for discussion include official and people's perceptions of PAs, and possibilities of participatory management. NGOs and forest officials are expected to participate.
Contact: Organising Committee, 4th Maharashtra Protected Areas Meeting, 509 Juni Ramdaspeth, Nagpur 440 010, Maharashtra.
3. With the completion of the draft Directory of National Parks and Sanctuaries in Maharashtra, prepared by a team at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, a state-level meeting on the management of protected areas is to be called towards the middle of this year. The draft, which runs into several hundred pages of data, maps, and analysis, has been reviewed by several experienced conservationists and forest officials of the state, and is soon to go to press.
Contact (regarding draft directory): Pratibha Pande, c/o Indian Institute of Public Administration, Indraprastha Estate, New Delhi 110 002 or Neema Pathak at the editorial address.
Contact (regarding proposed meeting): M.G. Gogate, Chief Wildlife Warden, Government of Maharashtra, Jaika Motors Building, 4th Floor, Civil Lines, Nagpur 440 001, Maharashtra. Tel: 91-712-526 758.
ORISSA
A serious situation has emerged along the Orissa coast as wanton killing of the endangered Olive Ridley turtles by fishing trawlers continues unabated. The Orissa government's professed measures for protection of the Olive Ridley turtles off the Gahirmatha coast in Kendrapara district appears to have yielded little result.
The Dehradun based Wildlife Institute of India (WII), estimated over 10,000 turtles to have been killed between December and February alone. The WII, which is undertaking a research programme on this rare species, maintained that the actual casualty figure could be much more as it had only listed those washed ashore on a 282 km. coastline stretching from Gahirmatha in the north to Dankur village bordering Andhra Pradesh in the south. There is also an alarming increase in the number of dead turtles along the Paradeep, Jatadhara and Devi coasts. 7,300 turtles out of about 20,000 seen close to Devi river edge had already been killed.
This points to a complete lack of enforcement of the Orissa Marine Fishing Regulation Act, 1982, prohibiting trawling within five km. from the shoreline. Neither are steps being taken for the mandatory use of the turtle excluder device (TED) in the trawler nets operating in the area. On the contrary, according to environmentalist Banke Behary Das, the trawlers and gill netters have stepped up their activities even in the marine sanctuary area during the current nesting season.
Fisheries secretary Abhayananda Rath, however, insisted that trawling was the last cause for the deaths. He suggested excessive 'fatigue' due to long migration, apart from the ageing process and swallowing of toxic substances released in the sea as the probable reasons. He did not deny the role of trawlers in the killing of turtles, but suggested that a post-mortem should be undertaken to arrive at a definite conclusion.
Forest officials and environmentalists are worried over the absence of Olive Ridleys at Gahirmatha marine sanctuary, their traditional nesting site. Meanwhile, three to four thousand female Olive Ridley turtles have been reported to have gone ashore to nest on the night of March 23rd, 1998, at Orissa's second major nesting site, a 2 km. long beach north of the mouth of the Rushikulya river.
Readers are requested to send notes of concern and requests for urgent action against the trawlers to :
1. The Chief Secretary, Government of Orissa (fax: 91-674-400244)
2. The Honourable Minister of Environment and Forests, Government of India, Paryavaran Bhavan, CGO Complex, New Delhi 110 003. Fax : 91-11-436 2222; Email: mosef@envfor.delhi.nic.in
Contact: Banke Behary Das, Orissa Krushak Mahasangh, 'Parivesh Bhawan', 14-Ashok Nagar, Bhubaneswar 751 009, Orissa, India. Tel: 91-674-400 305; Fax: 404 222, 409 125. Belinda Wright, Executive Director, Wildlife Protection Society of India, Thapar House, 124 Janpath, New Delhi 110 001, India. Tel: 91-11-621 3864; Fax: 91-11-336 8729; Email: blue@nda.vsnl.net.in (or ) wpsi@nde.vsnl.net.in. B.C. Choudhry, Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box 18, Chandrabani, Dehradun. Tel: 91-135-620 912-5; Fax: 91-135-620 217.
Sources : Satpathy, R. Endangered turtles dying off Orissa coast. Times of India 19/1/98. Satpathy, R. Trawlers' slaughter of Olive Ridley turtles causes concern. Times of India. 23/3/98. Information posted by WPSI at nathistory-india@lists.princeton.edu.
sRAJASTHAN
Circular on eco-development committees for protected areas
In an interesting move which implicitly acknowledges the need to integrate people's livelihood concerns in the objectives of protected areas, Rajasthan has issued a circular authorising the creation of eco-development committees (EDCs) both inside and adjacent to protected areas. Circular No. F11/4/Van/96, dated 2 December, 1997, states in it preamble that the extensive wildlife conservation programme launched by the state government cannot succeed without people's active participation. In addition, it notes that the "World Bank funded" Eco-developm tNude Meetingstrippeddevi Ca B1bd1a 2010 07 Search Label Mentira Meeting Stripped Devi JPAM Newsletter 16 s Movie cNude Meetingstrippeddevi Ca B1bd1a 2010 07 Search Label Mentira Meeting Stripped Devi JPAM Newsletter 16 k %C5%B7%C3%C0%BE%AB%C6%B7%CF%B5%C1%D0knockout_big+