Southern States - Kerala   

Land grab by tribals a dangerous trend

By P. Venugopal

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Feb. 11. The Antony Government has virtually abdicated its duty to protect the forests of the State and uphold the rule of the law by its continued inaction over the encroachment of the Muthanga Forest Range in Wayanad district by activists of the Adivasi Gothra Sabha (AGS).

In a way, what is happening in Muthanga Range, which comes under the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, is a repetition of the Mathikettan outrage. The only difference is that, if the forests of Mathikettan were taken over by the land grabbers surreptitiously using the Adivasis as a front, in Muthanga the encroachment is being carried out as an act of open defiance against the Government, which is supposed to enforce the law.

It is more than one month since the AGS, led by the tribal leader, C.K. Janu, had occupied the Muthanga Range, pitching tents and hoisting flags there to proclaim its `sovereign powers' over the territory. The AGS has proclaimed that the police and the forest officials have no business there. It has even posted guards around the occupied territory to prevent any one without its sanction from entering the place. And the Forest officials say they have instructions from above to keep off the place.

The occupied area is of vital ecological significance not just because of its location within the wildlife sanctuary. Adjoining this sanctuary are the Muthumalai National Park in Tamil Nadu and the Bandipur-Nagarhola Tiger Reserve in Karnataka. Together, these sanctuaries constitute one of the most important habitats of Asiatic elephants in the world. The Muthanga Range is also within the core area of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.

During the summer months, when the water sources in the adjoining Muthumalai and Bandipur-Nagarhola sanctuaries dry up, the elephants congregate in large herds in the Muthanga region, where there are swamps and a perennial stream called Noolpuzha. The occupied territory is smack in the middle of the elephant corridor and the new settlements will definitely disturb the migration habits of the wild elephants.

The Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary is infamous for elephant poaching. Also, the settlements on its fringes often report incidents involving man-animal conflict. With the forest officials under orders to keep off the territory, the poachers could now have a still merrier time here. There has been 147 recorded elephant kills for ivory in this region between 1991 and 2002. Wild elephants straying into adjoining settlements have killed 38 persons in this region between October, 1985 and June, 2002.

These developments, in fact, underline the need for special conservation initiatives in the region to ease the pressure of human interference into the habitat of wild animals. There are already a few traditional tribal settlements within the sanctuary. These tribes are, however, genuine eco-system people who, by their nature, do not meddle with the rules of the wild. Land grabbing is outside their culture.

Even in their case, the Forest Department has been planning to implement a resettlement programme because of the apparent behavioural changes in the wildlife of the region. The AGS- sponsored encroachment has to be seen against this background.

According to environmentalists, the gravest part of the Muthanga development is that the encroachers are urbanised tribals who have long ceased to be real eco-system people living in harmony with the forests. The culture of land grabbing being promoted by Ms. Janu and her organisation can spell the doom of the forests of the State. From Muthanga today, it can spread to any other sanctuary tomorrow, they point out.

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