Illegal fishing thrives in tiger reserve

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from: The Hindu

17/08/2004

By Lalit Shastri

BHOPAL, AUG. 16. There has been a spurt in illegal fishing in the Totladoh reservoir inside the Pench tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh despite a ban imposed by the Supreme Court in this Protected Area. There was tremendous biotic pressure on the Pench reserve forest when the Pench dam was under construction. Soon the managers of the reserve forest were confronted with the problem of illegal fishing but this menace could be contained only after the Supreme Court had ordered a complete ban on fishing in this reservoir.

State Forest Department sources told this correspondent today that hundreds of villagers are involved in illegal fishing in the Totladoh reservoir. When contacted, the founder President of Vasundhra, a Nagpur-based non-Government organisation that has been in the forefront spreading awareness about forests and wildlife among school students and the public, Gopal Ramchandra Thosar, said that anti-social elements were again active and large-scale fishing went on unabated in the reservoir. Mr. Thosar, who is a member of the Maharashtra State Wildlife Advisory Board, said that the labourers who had come to work on the Totladoh project ended up settling at the same site. It was with the intervention of the Maharashtra High Court that the labourers' colony was removed from the Totladoh reservoir area. It was only after the removal of this human settlement that the problem of illegal fishing could be fully contained, he said, adding that due to the soft approach being adopted by the authorities, the problem of illegal fishing and biotic pressure is once more acquiring grim proportions. He said that illegal fishing is being done on both sides — in Madhya Pradesh as well as Maharashtra.

A special eco-development plan was being implemented by the Park authorities over the last few years to keep a check on biotic pressure due to the villages in the buffer area. As the rights of people inside the Pench Tiger Reserve were extinguished, concerted efforts were made under the World Bank funded Eco-Development Project that began in 1997-98 to encourage the people residing in 99 villages around the Protected Area to develop their own resources to free them from dependence on the project Tiger area. In the process, many of those engaged in the illegal fishing were employed in forest related activities. people.

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