Kaziranga National Park Gets 3,000 Hectares Additional Land Where Animals Can Move Freely Now
In a major boost to the wildlife there, the?Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve?in Assam has been allocated over 3000 hectares of additional land.
Assam government on Thursday approved the additional land include areas from where illegal encroachment has been removed.
The 7th, 8th and 9th additions to the park will see encroachment-evicted areas and the suitable wildlife habitat at the riverine islands (sapori) which were also vulnerable to encroachment becoming part of the crucial reserve.
Good move
The 176 hectares of the seventh addition includes Deosur, Palkhowa and Deosur Hill PRF (Proposed Reserve Forest) in Nagaon district; the 307 hectares of the eighth addition comprises Banderdubi in Nagaon district; and 2,570 hectares of the ninth addition includes Mokua chapori in Sonitpur district. The ninth addition will be under the Biswanath Wildlife Division.
It is a move to consolidate the wildlife areas anticipating better wildlife conservation and reduction in the human-wildlife negative interactions in future.
The new addition will help animals including tigers to move freely and beyond Kaziranga to other protected areas.
Human-animal conflict solution
This is good news for the wildlife especially the big cats as recently following the?sighting of a golden tiger?it was revealed that there was?excessive inbreeding caused by habitat destruction?and loss of connectivity.?
Kaziranga which is also home to the endangered one-horned Rhinos has been hit by massive flooding in recent years, devastating the wildlife.
In July, the Centre had accepted Assam's proposal to construct a 32-km artificial highland inside the Kaziranga to?shelter animals from the flood.
Currently, the park has 20 km of?natural highland. Also, there are 144 artificial highlands. Of these 111 highlands were created back in 1990 and 33 were made in 2019.??
However, these are not enough to accommodate the large number of animals that come out of the park seeking refuge from the annual devastating floods.
¡°This will be the largest artificial highland inside the park. The highland will begin from the?Kaziranga forest range and stretch?up to the park¡¯s sixth additional areas under Biswanath forest range. When floods hit the national park, animals will take shelter on this highland, and after the monsoon is over, forest officials will use it for patrolling,¡± said P Sivakumar, Director of the national park.
Environmentalists have long opposed the idea of more artificial highlands inside Kaziranga and argue that it is not the real solution.
They say that it will do more harm to the ecology in the long run than good as the artificial highlands in a floodplain ecosystem will alter the natural course.
