Southern States - Karnataka

Mining in Kudremukh to stop in 5 yrs.

By Alladi Jayasri

BANGALORE April 20. The dog days seem to be over for the Kudremukh National Park (KNP), with the State Government now determined to stick to its commitment made in an affidavit before the Supreme Court that the Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd. (KIOCL) will cease operations within the national park over the next five years.

Environmentalists and the people's movements that the issue spawned in the Western Ghats districts of Chikmagalur, Dakshina Kannada and Shimoga have often felt that this change in stand by the State Government was driven more by the compulsions of complying with the Supreme Court's directives than the desire to be seen as a protector of its wildlife resources.

Now, the environmentalists, some of whom took the issue to court, have plenty of reasons to cheer. The Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, D.B. Chandre Gowda, who is also the minister in charge of Chikmagalur District, has made it clear that along with the mines, other kinds of human incursions inimical to the survival of national parks will have to go as well.

At a meeting with wildlife conservation groups and rural development NGOs here recently, Mr. Chandre Gowda took the stand that having told the Supreme Court that it would "roll back" its final notification on the KNP in which the it denotified 3,703.55 hectares of the park to accommodate a fresh lease for mining operations by the KIOCL. The 3,703.55 hectares of prime forest land includes 3203.55 hectares which was leased to the KIOCL, and 500 hectares of the submersion area of the Lakya Dam.

At the April 6 meeting, Mr. Chandre Gowda dashed the hopes of the "rural development lobby" among the NGOs which had banked on a denotification of areas of the KNP inhabited by tribal groups. Mr. Gowda, who had with him officials from the Forest and the Revenue departments, said the Government was committed to complying with Supreme Court directives in the matter of national parks and protected areas.

In fact, representatives of wildlife groups invited to the meeting were pleasantly surprised to hear Mr. Chandre Gowda give details of a resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) package, and make examples out of the Bhadra Tiger Reserve and Nagarahole National Park, where the R&R models have been very successful.

The highlights of the package offered to tribal people settled inside national parks are: all interior villages which are totally cut off from social amenities will be provided a voluntary resettlement package and shifted to the peripheral areas of the park where infrastructure such as roads, electricity, telephone, schools, and healthcare are already available; the Forest and Revenue departments will prepare a formal project proposal for voluntary rehabilitation of villages on the lines of the project being implemented in Bhadra; there will be no regularisation of forest encroachments other than those of pre-1978 vintage which have been identified and approved by the Union Government.

Many wildlife groups, including Wildlife First, Nature Conservation Guild of Chikmagalur, Greenwatchers of Tumkur, Kudremukh Wildlife Foundation, Arohana of Mangalore, and Wildcat- C of Chikmagalur have welcomed these decisions.

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