Wildlife panel clears Madhya Pradesh rail project using 200 hectares in tiger corridor
The Standing Committee of the Board for Wildlife (SC-NBWL) has given in-principle clearance to a railway line project that will use more than 200 hectares
The Standing Committee of the Board for Wildlife (SC-NBWL) has given in-principle clearance to a railway line project that will use more than 200 hectares of forest land within a tiger corridor between the Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh and the Melghat Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra. The apex wildlife body recommended the project subject to several conditions, including the adoption of mitigation measures based on a scientific study by the State Forest Research Institute in Jabalpur. It has also said its site inspection committee must revisit the area after examining the study and other relevant data. Read Full Story According to the project’s wildlife conservation management report, the proposed railway line will affect the Satpura-Melghat tiger corridor at two locations as well as the eco-sensitive zone in the ecologically significant Satpura-Pench-Melghat landscape.
The report said the corridor is a crucial stretch for maintaining forest contiguity in Satpura and for the sustenance of tigers in Central India. “It helps in maintaining biodiversity, allows tiger population to interbreed, permit movement of all animals and plants across a larger landscape and provide access to larger habitats, enable species to cross hostile areas, increase their range and colonise new sites,” the report said. The report also flagged possible impacts on wildlife. It said the railway line may restrict, inhibit or prevent the movement of species because of a combination of traffic noise, train movement, pollution and human activity. It also warned of a possible rise in human-animal conflict due to increased human presence and shrinking habitat. “Railways may disrupt the normal home range of wild animals, forcing them to explore new areas, where they may come into conflict with human beings,” the report said.
The project involves the Central Railway building a third railway line from Jujharpur in Betul district to Chichonda in Narmadapuram district in Madhya Pradesh. A committee set up by the SC-NBWL inspected the site in March this year. The minutes of an SC-NBWL meeting held on July 9 showed that the committee found that while the railway department had proposed several wildlife overpasses to reduce the project’s impact, their detailed engineering designs were still not complete. It also noted that a comprehensive scientific assessment of the project’s likely impact and suitable landscape-level mitigation measures had not been completed at the time of inspection. While recommending the project for clearance, the SC-NBWL said all mitigation measures must follow the scientific study report from the State Forest Research Institute, Jabalpur.
The BriefWire