In major development with an obvious projected fallout, The Ministry of Environment and forests has sounded a virtual death knell to Goas mining by filing an affidavit on the High Court of Bombay
The Centre has, at last, given its nod to the State Forest department to translocate 25 wild elephants that have terrorised the local residents in the Alur forest range of Hassan district.
There was very little focussed attention in designating specific wildlife rich areas as sanctuaries or national parks. India had about 80 sanctuaries notified across the country by the early 1960s, of which four were noted for the gigantic congregation of waterfowl during winter months. Tamil Nadu had at that time only three sanctuaries, including the Vedanthangal bird sanctuary.
It is viewed as a big step before declaring it as a tiger reserve
In a significant step towards protecting the varied wildlife and as the next big step to declare it a tiger reserve, the State Government has expanded the Sathyamangalam wildlife sanctuary to 1.41 lakh hectares.
Whereas, the Bandipur National Park was formed by including most of the forest areas of the Venugopala Wildlife Park and its Sanctum Sanctorum at Bandipur in the year 1974. In the year 2001, after going through the due process of law the State Government vide its Notification No.
Even as Goa government is delaying the submission of its proposal for the declaration of Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary as a Tiger Reserve, Union minister for environment and forests (MoEF) Jayanthi Natarajan has told Rajya Sabha that under section 38V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 State governments are authorized to notify an area as a tiger reserve on recommendation of the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
