The Forest Department’s argument that sand extraction taking place outside the Nagarahole National Park does not fall under its purview, has no takers even among the departmental staff.
For, there is communique from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India (dated July 31, 2013), that an area of 10 km around the national parks will be deemed to be an eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) where activities inimical to forests and wildlife cannot be permitted.
The communiqué states: “…a default area of 10 km from the boundary will be the eco-sensitive zone of such protected areas for which proposals have not been forwarded and in case of protected areas for which proposals are received but not yet notified, the default area of 10 km will continue and existing regulation will continue in respect of such area’’.
Though ESZ around Nagarahole is yet to be notified, the MoEF’s communique makes it binding on the Forest Department to crack down on the sand extraction taking place within a few meters from the forest edge. Hence the ban on sand mining in default area of 10 km will be valid till the final ESZ notification comes into effect around Nagarahole.
The MOEF directive indicates that 450 draft proposals for ESZ had been received (as on July 31, 2013) from across the country but there were many more national parks for which the drafts were yet to be received. This included 12 national parks or wildlife sanctuaries from Karnataka. Meanwhile, activists have pointed out that Hunsur region is a hotspot for man-animal conflict and ravaging the river bank within meters of the forest edge on such monstrous scale will aggravate the situation.
“Sand mining will disturb the movement of elephants and other animals and force them to human landscape escalating man-animal conflict. Besides that, the water table will be affected while presence of a large number of workers on the forest edge will help potential poachers to sneak into the forests”, according to activists.
