Kanha Tiger Reserve and biotic pressure

LALIT SHASTRI

The buffer zone of the Kanha Tiger Reserve in Central India leaves a direct impact and exerts biotic pressure on the peripheral Park area.

The villagers here depend largely on the resources of the Protected Area when it comes to the collection of fuel wood and Minor Forest Produce, use of some water bodies and cattle grazing. Eighteen forest villages are located within the boundary of Kanha National Park. Three
of these are located inside the core zone and the remaining in the peripheral area.

There are also 150 villages spread in 5 different ranges of the Buffer Zone Division. At least 40 peripheral villages have an impact, in one form or the other, on the protected area. The villagers, either Gond or the Baiga tribals, are traditionally food gatherers and pastoral. For subsistence, they also rely on collection of minor forest produce and wages earned through routine park works. Now they are also adapting to the agriculture mode of production. As a policy, the buffer zone of Kanha is being treated as an eco-development zone. Through various interventions, the idea is to ensure rural development and economic betterment of the indigenous people, while seeking people's participation in the protection of the core area. A buffer zone outside a Protected Area or the core zone of a Tiger Reserve is ecologically very essential to establish the vegetal connectivity with the adjoining forests to maintain the gene flow as corroborated by the theory of insular ecology. The 1991 amendment of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972) provides hardly any scope for consumptive use of natural resources within a Protected Area. However what is adding to the biotic pressure on the Kanha Tiger Reserve is over-population, both humans as well as cattle in the buffer zone.

This has dislocated the man to wilderness ratio, which has eventually paved the way for overuse of natural resources. Kanha Tiger Reserve has a buffer zone of 1009 sq. km. surrounding the core. The buffer zone, which is not a protected area, is spread out in two revenue districts of the Central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh: Mandla and Balaghat. The earliest records relating to the landuse by the surrounding villages of the Kanha Tiger Reserve dates back to around the late 1860s, when the villagers took to slash and burn technology and shifting cultivation. Gradually, they began cultivating crops like paddy, wheat and other cash crops--mainly for domestic consumption.

In the buffer zone, presently the predominant land use is agriculture, forestry and minor forest produce collection. Eco-tourism and involvement of stakeholders in tourism related activities is also picking up near the National Park entry points. While one or two small quarries of "murram" and stone exist in the revenue portions of the buffer, the Hindustan Copper Ltd. is situated about 10 kms. from its boundary.

Some of the common problems faced by the Park Management are: Illicit grazing, petty theft of fallen fuel wood, and poles for house construction, fishing, honey collection, manmade fires to promote new flush of tendu leaves, animal poaching (hunting with bow and arrow, poisoning and trapping), contamination of peripheral waterholes by village cattle, and the spreading of weeds due to seed dispersal.