Animals in the state’s wildlife sanctuaries and national parks will now have more space to themselves as the National Wildlife Board (NWB) has given clearance for expansion of land around protected areas of five wildlife sanctuaries and two national parks in the state by another three lakh hectares.
An official source from NWB said, “According to the proposal sent by the state forest department, we have granted clearance for an additional three lakh hectares of land to around five major wildlife sanctuaries and two national parks in Karnataka. With this, the total notified protected areas in the state is now 9.5 lakh hectares from the existing 6.5 lakh hectares.”Thus, the total land actually covered by forests is 33,238.47 sq km, constituting about 17.33 per cent of the total geographical area of the state.The protected area around two national parks Bannerghatta National Park, Kudremukh National Park and five wildlife sanctuaries — Mookambika Wildlife Sanctuary, Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary, Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary and Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary — has been granted clearance for expansion.About the advantages of land expansion around protected areas, an official from the state forest department told Express, “Villages around these protected areas will not be disturbed. The area to be expanded lies within the forest area and added to the protected area, providing more space for wild animals.”“In order to improve corridor connectivity and increase conservation of wildlife, we had sent the proposal to NWB a couple of months ago. Increase in the protected areas will help animals, especially elephants and leopards. In addition, this will also help the forest department curb man-animal conflict, a problem the forest department has been grappling with,” he said.However, with apprehensions that the villagers’ land may be affected, initially local residents around these national parks and wildlife sanctuaries had raised.An edited version of this article was published in Express News Service and can be read from,
http://expressbuzz.com/biography/now-karnataka%E2%80%99s-wild-beasts-to-get-more-room/324787.html
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