‘Vague and unscientific’: Why Goa is arguing against Supreme Court panel’s plan to notifying tiger reserve

The affidavit, filed last week by additional principal chief conservator of forests and chief wildlife warden K Ramesh Kumar, on behalf of the government, said the CEC has not confined itself to an objective examination of the issue and “under the guise of recommendations”, it has effectively issued directions to the petitioners to notify the tiger reserve, which fall outside the scope of its authority. The government submitted that the issue for consideration before the CEC was whether in light of prevailing facts and circumstances, the Cotigao-Mhadei forest complex of Goa comprising of five protected areas…ought to be notified as tiger reserve under section 38-V (1) of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 or not.

The government said that as a necessary corollary, any proposal for notifying an area as a tiger reserve must be predicated upon the presence of breeding or resident tigers in the concerned area. “However, a bare perusal of the report reveals that the CEC completely failed to undertake any meaningful exercise to ascertain the presence of tiger population (whether permanent or transient) in the Cotigao-Mhadei forest complex. Such an inquiry was fundamental to the question referred to the CEC,” it said.

It further said: “Instead, the CEC has proceeded on an erroneous premise by focusing on the population of local inhabitants rather than first determining the existence and status of tiger population”.

The government submitted that the CEC report “affirms that the resident tigers of Kali Tiger Reserve are mere transient to the protected areas in the state of Goa and do not reside therein or use the said areas for breeding activities and that the protected areas in Goa are already duly protected in a proper scientific manner to ensure complete protection of all existing species including tigers…”

The government argued that the existing framework of the protected areas in Goa “which is already scientifically managed and ensures all-round protection for all species, including tigers, do not need to be notified as a tiger reserve solely for the purpose of conservation of tigers in Karnataka”.

“Goa’s Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Park ensure and [an] accord excellent corridor for tiger movement between Karnataka and Maharashtra, which the CEC has failed to note. By directing declaration of a tiger reserve in the state of Goa would not only prove to be superfluous, but also lead to several other issues, including but not limited to resentment from local inhabitants towards resettlement, increase in man-animal conflicts etc,” the affidavit said.

“Further, given the absence of concrete evidence confirming the presence of resident and breeding tiger populations in the protected areas of Goa, it is reasonable to infer that these regions function primarily as areas linking tiger reserves rather than core habitat for tigers,” it added.

The government reiterated its earlier stance stating that “lack of resident and breeding tigers” and “the mere presence of a few transient tigers passing through the area” does not necessitate declaring the area as a tiger reserve, “when the protections afforded to such an area are in itself sufficient towards ensuring adequate safeguards to the transit of tigers and other animals.”

The government said the CEC has arbitrarily demarcated an area to be declared as core or buffer, without any cogent scientific empirical evidence, and without evaluating in detail the socio-economic impact of such recommendations. It said the CEC ought to have left the decision to the state for inclusion or exclusion of a particular area as a tiger reserve, given the localised challenges and its full awareness of the extent of habitation.

“The NTCA [National Tiger Conservation Authority] in its report in 2022 has noted no presence of tigers in any of the currently proposed areas to be notified as a tiger reserve. Therefore, the actual issue of presence/absence of tigers in an area, which ought to be the benchmark of demarcation of an area as a tiger reserve, has completely been ignored by CEC while preparing the report.