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Centre should decide on Goa as tiger reserve: Filipe Neri

HERALD
June 4,2010
On the World Environment Day, the environmentalists continue to find it a distant dream to get state’s wildlife sanctuaries declared as a tiger habitat, thanks to the lack of a strong political will.

While environmentalists have been lobbying hard to get the state declared as tiger reserves, the State Forest Minister Filipe Neri Rodrigues brushed aside his responsibility bluntly saying “it's for the Centre to declare state as tiger reserve”.

Environmentalist, Rajendra Kerkar, just before the census in April, 2010 had rightly predicted that the animal census will give the clear picture of tiger presence in the state.

Kerkar said that the protection of sanctuaries like Mhadei, Netravali and Bhagwan Mahaveer will provide continuous corridor to this wild animal connecting neighbouring Maharashtra and Karnataka states.

He said that the demand to declare Mhadei wildlife sanctuary as tiger reserve exists since 1999 but the state government does not care about it.

Meanwhile, environmentalist Nirmal Kulkarni, known for his eco-columns in newspapers, offered no comments when this reporter contacted him.
“It’s useless to comment….we are been fighting for long…no use,” he said in a disgust.

Along with environmentalists, NGO’s like Nisarga, Mission Green, Goa Foundation, and others are always pressing for declaration of these sanctuaries as tiger reserves so that the mining companies are kept at a distance from where even if they want, they can’t peep into it. However, the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (APCCF) Dr Shashi Kumar feels it’s irrelevant to link mining with tiger reserves.

“But, there need to be proper evidences to prove it. The recent census has shown some indirect evidences but has not given the clear picture. The tigers that we see here, is just the reason of overflowing population from neighbouring states,” Dr Kumar maintained.

The forest department records confirmed that the census held in 2002 had counted presence of four tigers in the state based on pugmarks and other related signs of the wild beast.

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