Refinishing the Relocation

Now the Villagers of Padra have no reason to sing ‘why this kollavari di?’ link below (Kollavari means ‘why did you do this to me?’) because they have now been given fair chance to live life just like the rest of their villager men and women, who were relocated in 2007.

If this village, which is located in the core of Ranthambhore forest, is moved out the forest department would be able to make space for 4-5 tigers in a secure protected zone otherwise these tigers would be forced to stray out to look for their territory.

These 23 families stayed back because they could not settle with the land they were offered, they were left with dented infrastructure as the rest villagers were gone besides these the remaining families were hindering the tigers from flourishing in the area.

Village Padra - A hurdle now in process of getting cleared for the inviolate landscape

The Chief Secretary of Rajasthan - the top most bureaucrat of the state, arrived in Jogi Mahal a few days ago and organized a meeting with all the concerned department officials. Instead of setting up just a meeting, the man of action set a morning aside to visit the villages himself along with the team consisting of the HoF, CWLW, DM, SP, CF, DFO, ACF, RO’s, AD and other officials to handover the cheques to the villagers.

A discussion of all local officers, senior officials and villagers

Mr S Ahmed sitting for further discussions with the villagers

Mr S. Ahmed discussing possibilities of better prospects after the villagers settle in the new land

DFO Mr YK Sahoo with HoF singing the cheques for distribution

This time the district of Sawai Madhopur has been blessed with genuine officers not one or two but most of the team members are proactive. With all the personal interactions, I have had with them the commissioner is a learned and strategic person; while the SP – an academician from Cambridge is a calm and controlled person.

The CF and DFO are not just managing regular duty but are actually following the wall construction around the park, but also rigorous monitoring of the tigress with cubs and legitimately concerned about their safety as some of them are living at the edge of the park and are in danger of villagers anger.

The three musketeers - CF Mr Gupta, SP Mr Bhomia and Collector Mr Kushwaha

Calling the water works engineers to make arrangements for boring water in the relocation site

Women looking forward to a better future for their children waiting outside the park

Mr S Ahmed calling amma to remove pardah and look at future - the elderly lady blessed him for the gift given by the government at the last stages of her life

A close up view of Village Padra inside the Ranthambhore national park

Padra village from inside

Chottu Gurjar - was attacked by a tiger few years ago bears the marks on his face and heart but today is happy to move out of the forest

Laughing laddoo.. but everybody else smiling too!

The team combined has covered most aspects of this village relocation. There is an important message which would pass on to the remaining villagers who are waiting to see if this village would move or now and once it does happen the rest would be motivated to follow. There are three more villages left to be moved outside the park 12 villages were relocated by late Shri Fateh Singh Rathore.

Tigress T11 with one of her three cubs - she lives in the same area; a few years ago the same tigress had lost her cubs to poisoning by villagers from the area

Jogi watching over the relocation process

Jogi is hopeful about the process of relocation rolling which would benefit the tiger and the locals both alike... one man has set an example and we hope remaining three villages will be relocated too...

So now no more Kollavadi di !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR12Z8f1Dh8&feature=player_embedded

Reformed poacher Jugraj Mogya

This story is of a poacher, who has killed three tigers in Ranthambhore National Park but since 1 ½ years he is working in the forest department office as a gardener.

Ex poacher Jugraj Mogya now working as a gardener in DFO office

Jugraj Mogya is facing trial in high court for killing three tigers from Ranthambhore national park. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9GRqMJLOA8 He was operating from the Uliyana village. In 2006, Jugraj surrendered his illegal weapon to late Shri Fateh Singh Rathore and his retired friend ex-DGP Rajasthan late Mr. Shantanu Singh. Add. SP -Mr. Samir Singhji lead team of CB –CID had listed him for poaching three tigers and selling to a trader.

Jugraj in police custody

Late Sri Fateh singh ji and Late Sri Shantanu Kumar ji addressing the media during Jugraj's surrender

http://news.oneindia.in/2006/11/21/notorious-poacher-belonging-to-kesara-gang-surrenders-1164096201.html

After few months in jail, Jugraj got a bail. When jugraj came back to his village Halonda, some villagers of Uliayana kidnapped him and made him a bonded labor, so that they could compensate their loan. Village Uliana is infamous for their violent people. In early 8o’s the villagers from Uliana had attacked Mr. Fateh and broken his legs and hand. They fired on policemen and provided shelter to poachers like Devi Singh.

Jugraj had taken INR 25000 loan for his daughters marriage from them. The villagers made new loan papers and included that Jugraj had taken INR 67000/- loan, actually they included interest in this sum. Now, Jugraj was asked to pay almost INR 2000 per month as interest and return the rest of the inflated money. That time DFO-Ranthambhore got news that Jugraj is in Uliyana again and can kill a tiger any time to return the loan. Once again the Forest officials contacted Tiger Watch to rescue Jugraj from Uliana.

Jugraj was rescued from Uliana by Tiger Watch team but scared Jugraj said that his family’s life could be in danger and he has no choice but to settle the loan. Fateh Singh rathore called up the villager who had lended the money to Jugraj and ACF Mr. Sudarshan Sharma to settle this case. Fatehji decided to give INR 25000 from Tiger Watch to the money lender and ACF Mr Sudharshan offered new job to Jugraj. Fateh’s German friend Mr. Dieter Gutman compensated this money to Tiger watch.

ACF Sudharshan Sharma played an important role in reform of Jugraj

ACF Mr. Sudarshan Sharma gave him job of gardener in forest office. Secure job and uniform gave Jugraj the confidence, peace of mind and dignity. To date Jugraj is working with forest department. Gratitude’s from Tiger Watch to Mr. Sudarshan Sharma for his positive contribution towards reform of this poacher.

If the community, NGO and authority do small deeds like this they can change the face of conservation.

Machali II fights T-6 for Sambar kill

Machali fights T6

Those who know Ranthambhore also know its famous lady - Machali (II). Machali has been the grandmother of Ranthambhore now and is still fighting. We all have heard of her fighting the crocodiles (when she reined the lakes), her told and untold countless fights with other tigers and her stories of grace, dominance and richness (Machali has earned about US $ 10 million per annum for the last 10 years for Ranthambhore's economy) she has been indeed a legend and an asset to Ranthambhore and its people.

On 14th June we were fortunate to see the ageless lady again fighting for her food. And yes she is not scared she means business.

Read on:

Our first sighting was of T-6 but it was at a distance ... at laambi ka nallah first pic below ...

T-6 at the laambi ka nalla he sat in the waters, (which is the area currently occupied by Machali) for a long time sniffing the air as if searching for something. We didnt know...

Soon we got to know that Machali is sleeping with the sambar kill on the top plateau. It was about 6 PM yet hot summer was like a furnace! Machali was sleeping about 40 feet from the kill, the sambar looked huge. She must have consumed about 10% of it, she must have been waiting for weather to get cooler before she would eat also, due to the loss of canines she must be waiting for the meat to decompose which would be easier to chew.

Machali and the sambar kill

Within 10 minutes of us coming up came the male T-6 sniffing the kill he must have walked more than a kilometer distance.

Machali went alert even before most of us and we could easily see her apprehension and her gauging the situation.

The young male walking towards the kill

As soon as the male came closer Machali steped back and sat at some 50 feet distance

The male started to eat the kill

T-6 giving some interesting looks

In a moment he left the kill and rushed towards Machali

Machali stood on two feet, claws open and pounced on T-6 before he could attack

We see Machali facing the camera

Cat wrestling there

T-6 soon got the control

His paws striking Machali on face

Machali falling on the ground

Machali hitting the male on the eyes with claws out

Male turning back

One last warning

Big roars before T-6 pulls back

T-6 back at Machali's kill - stealing the steal

Pictures © Divya and Dharmendra Khandal.

Mis-Guided Guidelines?

The new guidelines about "Eco-tourism" need to be more than fancy mathematical formulae

Last week the Ministry of Environment & forest (MoEF) on their website published a draft before issuing of the final guidelines for Ecotourism in and around Protected Areas. It has asked people to come forward and make suggestions over the draft guidelines.

It is a fair and pleasant approach that the public is been involved in making such policies. These guidelines have mainly two objectives – provide alternative livelihood opportunities for the local communities and second having low impact tourism that protects ecological integrity of wilderness areas, secure wildlife values of the destinations and its surrounding areas.

The entire countries conservation and tourism circles have been brainstorming on this issue. Many people - some are against the guidelines while some are in favour of it. Some conservationist and tourism people were involved in the initial stage of the guideline drafting committee and they say that though they were there but their concerns were not involved in making of these guidelines. The debatable topic here is that those suggestions from the committee members were not accepted, will the suggestions invited from local people be accepted; or is it just a way to show concern by the government. Looking at the report a nonprofessional may be baffled as it has so many scientific terms and mathematical formulas. Use of eco-friendly words make it sound like a scientific paper. However, as you go into understanding the depth of it the scientific uncloaking will reveal otherwise, the eco-friendly make up starts to fizz, which I will be discussing shortly.

Here we would discuss the mathematical formula:

ESTIMATION OF CARRYING CAPACITY

(Model Calculation, Example: Kanha Tiger Reserve)

(a) Physical Carrying Capacity (PCC): This is the “maximum number of visitors that

can physically fit into a defined space, over a particular time”. It is expressed as:

PCC = A X V/a X RF

Where, A = available area for public use

V/a = one visitor / M2

Rf = rotation factor (number of visits per day)

In order to measure the PCC to Kanha, the following criteria must be taken into

account:

_ Only vehicular movements on forest roads are permitted

_ The “standing area” is not relevant, but “closeness” between vehicles is important

_ There is a required distance of at least 500 m (1/2 km.) between 2 vehicles to avoid

dust (2 vehicles / km.)

_ At least 3 ½ hours are needed for a single park excursion

_ The PA is open to tourists for 9 months in a year and 9 hours per day

13

_ Linear road lengths within the tourist zone are more relevant than area, and the total

lengths are:

Kanha 107.20 km.

Kisli 72.56 km.

Mukki 103 km.

Total 282.76 or 283 km.

Due to constant vehicular use, the entire road length of 283 km. is prone to

erosion, out of which around 90 km. is affected more

Rotation Factor (Rf) = Opening period

Average time of one visit

Physical Carrying Capacity (PCC) = 283 km. x 2 vehicles / km. x 2.6

= 1471.6 or 1472 visits / day

(b) Real Carrying Capacity (RCC): RCC is the maximum permissible number of visits to a site, once the “reductive factors” (corrective) derived from the particular characteristics of the site have been applied to the PCC. These “reductive factors” (corrective) are based on biophysical, environmental, ecological, social and management variables.

RCC = PCC – Cf1 – Cf2

---------------- Cfn,

Where Cf is a corrective factor expressed as a percentage. Thus, the formula for

calculating RCC is:

RCC = PCC x 100 – Cf1 x 100 – Cf2 x ……… 100 - Cfn

100 100

Corrective Factors are “site-specific”, and are expressed in percentage as below:

Cf = Ml x 100

Mt

Where: Cf = corrective factor

Ml = limiting magnitude of the variable

Mt = total magnitude of the variable

Road erosion: Here the susceptibility of the site is taken into account 14

Total road length = 283 km. (Mt)

Medium erosion sink = 50 km. (weighting factor: 2)

High erosion risk = 40 km. (weighting factor: 3)

Ml = 50 x 2 + 40 x 3 = 100 + 120 = 220 km.

Mt = 283 km.

Cfe = 220 x 100 = 77.8 or 78%

------------

283

(ii) Disturbance to Wildlife: Here, species that are prone to disturbance owing to visitation are considered. The Central Indian barasingha, a highly endangered, endemic species found only in Kanha has a courtship period of about 1 month in winter, during which it is extremely sensitive to disturbance. Likewise, the peak courtship activity for spotted deer lasts for two months before the onset of regular monsoon. As far as tigers are concerned, newborns are seen between March and May and also during the rains; hence an average value of two months in a year can be considered as the matter phase.

Corrector Factor (Cf) = limiting months / year x 100

12 months / year

Corrective Factor for barasingha

Cf w1 = 1 x 100 = 11.1%

-------------

9

Corrective Factor for spotted deer

Cf w2 = 2 x 100 = 22.2%

----------

9

Corrective Factor for tiger

Cf w2 = 2 x 100 = 22.2%

---------

9

Overall corrective factor for disturbance of wildlife in Kanha National Park = Cf w =

Cf1 + Cf2 + Cf3

= 11.1 + 22.2 + 22.2 = 55.5 or 55%

(iii) Temporary Closing of Roads: For maintenance or other managerial reasons, visitation to certain roads may be temporary restricted within the Protected Area. The Corrective Factor in this regard is calculated as:

Cft = limiting weeks / year x 100

total weeks / year 15

In Kanha, an average value of 2 limiting weeks per year may be considered as the

“limiting weeks”, and thus the corrective factor works out to:

Cft = 2 weeks / year x 100 = 5.5%

36 weeks / year

Computation of RCC

RCC = 1472 x 100-78 x 100-55 x 100-5.5

---------- ---------- ----------

100 100 100

= 1472 (0.22 x 0.45 x 0.95)

= 138.4 or 138 visits / day

(c) Effective Permissible Carrying Capacity (ECC): ECC is the maximum number of

visitors that a site can sustain, given the management capacity (MC) available. ECC is obtained by multiplying the real carrying capacity (RCC) with the management capacity (MC). MC is defined as the sum of conditions that PA administration requires if it is to carry out its functions at the optimum level. Limitations in management like lack of staff and infrastructure limit the RCC.

For Kanha, owing to the paucity of staff the MC is around 30%. Hence, ECC = 138 x

0.30 = 41.4 or 40 vehicles / day.

Thus, the Effective Permissible Carrying Capacity on any single day is only 40 vehicles, which should be allowed entry as below:

(Forenoon) = 25 vehicles (inclusive of both entry points)

(Afternoon) = 15 vehicles (inclusive of both entry points)

During peak season (winter months), the staff strength may be increased (only 10%) by deploying “special duty” personnel; this would enhance the ECC to 55 vehicles per day.

Further, increase in the number of vehicles would lead to deleterious effects on the habitat.

The formula given above looks like some kind of specialized scientific work, but this formula is to be understood simply –

Description: there are three types of carrying capacity; Physical Carrying Capacity is the maximum number of vehicles, which can go inside the park. The second is the Real Carrying Capacity it is the number of vehicles that can be permitted, without disturbing the park’s wildlife and preventing the ecosystem from any erosion. The Effective Permissible Carrying Capacity is the maximum number of visitors that a site can sustain, given the park management capacity available.

How they calculated the different Carrying Capacities?

Physical Carrying capacity (PCC) – they said that the square kilometre area could not be applied to the Indian context, hence they measured a road length and recommended keeping 500 meters distance between two vehicles to avoid dust. Which means two cars can be permitted in 1 km, and there are two safaris in the day.

Hence, the total road length multiplied by 2 cars per km multiplied by two safaris is the total PCC. This is as simple as knowing how much water a bottle can hold.

What question arises from this calculation –

1. The main guidelines spoke about opening 15- 20% of the park area & then they came from area to road length to fit the formula. If we have contradictions in one single report then who will understand the report?
2. What part of the road is taken for the calculation entire road of the reserve or just the one open for tourism?
3. If the tourism area is taken then on what basis was the tourism zone opened?
4. Keeping distance of 500 meters between two cars was calculated to avoid dust, but what if it is a wet forest where there is no dust and what if the tourist is ready to face the dust. Will this data fluctuate when there are no dusty days such as the rains or post rains? It is a very relative thing, which is considered.

Real Carrying Capacity (RCC) –

RCC means the actual capacity of ecosystem, which, is without disturbing or least disturbing the wildlife, does not cause damage to ecosystem like erosion etc, and can tolerate the movement of vehicles.

RCC has calculated two types of disturbances one is the erosions of roads in the park and the other is disturbance to wildlife.

What question arises from this calculation –

1. They have classified two types of erosion - high and medium. On what basis were medium and high classified? In addition, how did they calculate that the medium is 100 km and high erosion is 120 km?
2. They calculated the disturbance to wildlife in Kanha this part is the most perplexing part. In the whole of kanha they selected only three animals – the tiger, barasingha and the spotted deer, why was Sambar, leopards, dholes, sloth bear, guar, hyena, insects, birds, other cats, and other canids not included? They believe that just these three animals get disturbed during breeding time only.

What about other animals?

Effective permissible carrying capacity (ECC) -

This capacity is keeping in mind the management capacity available for the park. According to them just 30 % management capacity is available in Kanha and so they reduced the RCC by 30%.

What question arises from this calculation –

1. In a park like Ranthambhore department of tourism was managing this work; however, the forest department fought and asked to take up this tourism management work in their portfolio.

If the forest department is so short staffed and working on 30% of its capacity then they should not be doing the tourism management work in the first place.

2. What is the ideal management capacity does there any such calculation exist, how much staff is required to manage said tourism?

Conclusion: they had to come out with a special figure, which they managed to achieve irrespective of the methodology of calculation.