India: No country for wild tigers? | Janaki Lenin

If the tigers of Panna are under threat of being displaced by a dam, the tigers of nearby Kanha, Pench, and Navegaon Nagzira tiger reserves in the two central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are in danger from a highway. The National Highways Authority of India proposes to widen a 50-km (31-mile) stretch of road to a four-lane divided highway connecting Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, with Nagpur, Maharashtra. While allowing humans to hurtle between these two cities, the road slices two tiger corridors: Pench-Nagzira corridor in Maharashtra and the Pench-Kanha corridor in Madhya Pradesh. Although National Highway 7 (NH7) exists already, widening it will aggravate the problem it poses to wildlife. Central Indian forests hold about 33% of India’s tigers, 688 of them. According to the National Tiger Conservation Authority, a tiger population needs at least 80 to 100 adults to be self-sustaining. None of the tiger reserves in central India host a viable tiger population independently. Corridors are essential for these reserves to sustain tigers and other wild animals. For example, the lack of corridors caused a native population of gaur to go extinct in Bandhavgarh National Park in 1997. Camera trapping, genetic analysis, and radio telemetry studies show these corridors are active animal routes. Tigers are not the only ones using them; gaur, leopards, sloth bears, and wild dogs are some of the other large mammals that disperse along these paths. The National Tiger Conservation Authority said widening the road would cause irreparable damage to tiger habitat and turned down the proposal. The Wildlife Institute of India declared the two corridors are essential for the genetic diversity of the large cats. WWF-India called NH7 a “major barrier for animals near the Pench Tiger Reserve” in a report ‘Lifeline for tigers.’ The National Board of Wildlife did not view the proposal favourably and neither did the Forest Advisory Committee. The Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court called for the road to be shut down. This opposition ought to have shut the lid on the proposal. A Times of India report of 20 September 2013 describing the potholed NH7 as ‘Highway to hell’ marked a turning point. The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court jumped in, by initiating legal proceedings based on the news report. At first, it ordered the road to be re-paved, but later demanded the highway be upgraded, without realising forest and wildlife clearances are necessary. But even after two years and numerous press reports, the court insists it has the authority to unilaterally order the road to be widened. The Ministry of Environment and Forests gave initial environmental clearance in December 2013. In February 2015, the high court and state government issued permissions to the highways authority to knock down trees over a 10-km (6-mile) stretch of NH7. However, none of the permissions, whether issued by the high court, the ministry, or the state, were legally valid since they ran afoul of the Forest Conservation Act and the Wildlife Protection Act. Instead of evaluating the merits of the case and its impact on wildlife, the wildlife board hurriedly cleared the project on 18 August. It didn’t follow its own guidelines on how to deal with roads passing through protected forests. The ministry will likely push through the clearance required under the Forest Conservation Act as well. After all, it has gained a reputation among environmentalists and conservationists for cursorily approving any project that requires forests to be destroyed. The Wildlife Institute of India, which had initially objected to the road widening, changed its stand. Presumably capitulating under pressure from the ministry, high court, and/or the highways authority, it agreed that the road could be widened as long as underpasses were built to allow passage of wildlife at the cost of rupees 750 crores (£73.6m). The National Highways Authority grudgingly committed to nine elevated sections along the road for the safe passage of wild animals at a cost of rupees 100 crores (£9.82m). On 5 May 2015, conservation organisations filed an appeal in the National Green Tribunal challenging the permissions granted by the ministry and state. The tribunal stayed all further work on the highway. In a bizarre situation, two judicial bodies are at conflict with each other. Justice Gavai of the Bombay High Court disparaged the tribunal “You [the petitioner] chose to approach some tribunal which has been created under some Act.” Justice Swatanter Kumar, the Chairperson of the National Green Tribunal, questioned how the high court could have allowed felling of trees in the absence of legal compliance. While one demanded that trees be chopped as soon as possible, the other sought assurances that not a single tree be hacked. About 49.25 hectares (121.70 acres) of forests would have to be leveled for widening NH7. That may not sound like much, but a road creates an edge along which the forest frays slowly. Safe havens for wildlife shrink as the increased disturbance from roads pushes animals farther into the interior. More traffic brings more air, noise, and light pollution in areas that need to be protected. But wildlife activists fear that a wide, divided, slick highway through some of the best forests of central India would become a death trap for wild animals. Roadkills are a major concern. For instance, highway traffic through Bandipur National Park, Karnataka, is now limited to daylight hours to reduce the mortality of wild animals. Most importantly, if the road is widened now, the highways authority might seek to make it even wider in the future. None of this anxiety is necessary because there is an alternative. The Alternative The Wildlife Trust of India proposed another existing highway as a substitute to NH7 in 2009. It is a mere 70 km (43.4 miles) longer than the road cutting through tiger corridors. At that time, the highways authority quibbled that it was a state highway and cannot be upgraded to national highway. But since then, it has not only upgraded it to national highway status, but widened NH69 to a four-lane carriageway. Wildlife conservation organisations, including Bombay Natural History Society and Wildlife Institute of India, support this alternate route. NH69 cuts through good forest at Sillewani Ghat for 11 km, but wildlife activists recognise the need for road connectivity and the greater importance of leaving NH7 alone. This could be a win-win situation since NH69 has already been made. It saves the highways authority rupees 100 crore in building underpasses in Maharashtra alone. Madhya Pradesh would also have to build such structures on its side of the border at rupees 860 crores (£84.4m). Almost all agencies that ought to protect wild habitats and species - the ministry, the state, wildlife institute, and the tiger authority - currently appear to support the highways authority’s proposal. The case now rests with the tribunal. So what is it going to be? A 70-km detour or the future of three tiger reserves?