A face-off between forest officials and wildlife experts, who are a part of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), could stall the move to shut down resorts in the crucial Sigur corridor which elephants use to move between Eastern and Western Ghats through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and provide an open area for the pachyderms for unfettered movement.
While the Boards expert members are almost entirely in favour of a Madras high court order to shut down dozens of high-end resorts operating in the corridor, the ministry officials want to further review the move that was marked for assessment by the Supreme Court to the board.
The high court had ordered that the area falling in the corridor be taken over by the forest department, and the resorts be demolished. The HC had in its order said that the guest-house owners had indulged in eco-destruction in the name of eco-tourism.
The resort owners moved a petition against the order in the SC. The petitioners included actor Mithun Chakraborti, who also owns a resort in the wild corridor that connects the largest contiguous population of elephants in the country.
Chakraborty, suggesting that tribals caused more harm to forests than the hotel industry, had claimed in his plea before the apex court that the resort provides employment to locals and it is part of the backbone of eco-tourism in the area. He reasoned that poaching and firewood collection from the forests has declined significantly since the resort has become an alternative source of income for tribals through the year, helping the elephants to roam freely.
The forest department had claimed before the HC that the hotels and resorts were running in violation of the Tamil Nadu Preservation of Private Forests Act. The SC asked the NBWL to review the HC’s expert panel report on the issue and comment on it to aid a decision. The NBWL is the apex authority on wildlife issues and is chaired by the PM. And, the Union environment and forests minister heads its standing committee.
