File image of one-horned rhinos grazing in Pobitora Wildlife sanctuary in Morigaon district of Assam
| Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook a safari at the Kaziranga National Park, the Assam Cabinet on March 10 determined to de-notify one other prime one-horned rhino habitat – the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary about 48km east of Guwahati.
Environment activists mentioned the choice, taken 26 years after the Assam Forest Department notified Pobitora as a wildlife sanctuary on March 17, 1998, is the primary of its type for any protected space within the nation.
The Assam authorities adopted it up with a petition within the Supreme Court on March 12 searching for aid from demarcating the boundary of the 38.8sqkm sanctuary, eradicating encroachments and unlawful actions inside, and declaring an eco-sensitive zone round it.
Confirming the event, a senior forest officer mentioned the Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took the choice because the 1998 notification was made with out inserting the matter earlier than the Cabinet and the Chief Minister then.
The minutes of the assembly, hooked up with the petition earlier than the apex courtroom mentioned the Forest Department has no jurisdiction over the government-owned khas (fallow) land which was included within the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary.
“The rights of the affected people were not fully settled, especially people residing in the area prior to the issuance of the notification of the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary in 1998, including people belonging to deprived and marginalised sections of the society such as SC, ST, OBC, etc.,” the minutes learn.
The Cabinet notice cited periodic patta (deed) land of three villages – Thengabhanga, No. 1 Murkata, and Raja Mayong – the place individuals belonging to backward and marginalised communities had been residing even earlier than Independence.
At the identical time, the Cabinet noticed that “it is important to declare Pobitora as a wildlife sanctuary in view of the large number of rhino population that it houses along with substantial population of other wildlife such as wild buffaloes, leopards, wild boars, barking deer, etc., which need protection”.
Mini Kaziranga
Often referred to as ‘Mini Kaziranga’ owing to the similarity of panorama, floral, and faunal distribution, Pobitora’s rhino inhabitants was pegged at 107 after the final census in 2022. The sanctuary has the very best focus of the one-horned rhinos on earth.
Underlining the necessity to deal with the perimeter villagers of the sanctuary as lively companions within the wildlife conservation course of, the Cabinet additional determined to kind a five-member committee headed by the Special Chief Secretary (Forest) to study the professionals and cons of the choice to de-notify Pobitora. The panel has been requested to submit its report inside six months.
“A State government declaring its own gazette notification irregular after 26 years and resolving to de-notify Pobitora as a wildlife sanctuary is unprecedented. This is disturbing since the Supreme Court in February was surprised at the Assam government’s inability to demarcate the boundary of the sanctuary in more than 25 years,” a number one conservationist mentioned, declining to be quoted.
The apex courtroom made this remark whereas listening to a petition contending that the boundary of Pobitora, notified in 1998 below the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972 was but to be demarcated and the management of part of the sanctuary comprising khas land was but to be handed over to the Forest Department by the Morigaon district administration.
The proposal for the de-notification of any sanctuary or nationwide park requires the advice of the National Board for Wildlife adopted by the Supreme Court’s approval, activists mentioned.