Govt urged to resolve problems facing Rajaji Park

UNI - September 24, 1998

DEHRA DUN: The Rajaji National Park in the Shivaliks should be formally declared as a protected area by the State Government after resolving the issues which have so far hindered this declaration, the Friends of the Doon (FOD) Society says.

The ruined hills and forests of the Shivaliks in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are standing examples of human interference and the Shivaliks in Uttar Pradesh must be saved, the FOD an NGO based in this Valley, observes.

In to a study published by them recently, the FOD says that the tremendous biotic pressure imposed by the Gujjars on the already fragile Shivalik ecosystem must be removed as the need for saving these forests paramount.

The only way to save these Gujjars as well as the forests of the Rajaji National Park is to help them in all possible ways to move out of the forests and resettle on land to be provided by the State together with other facilities, the study says.

The UP Government has sent a proposal to the Centre seeking its clearance for providing two acres of land to each Gujjar family. The proposal said that land would be acquired by clearing degraded forest land.

The FOD Society, in conjunction with the Park Directorate and the Wildlife Protection Society of India, is planning a comprehensive socio-economic programme to help the Gujjar community to join the mainstream of rural life in the region, of which a major component would be upgradation of their cattle and animal husbandry practices.

Only recently, says the FOD Society, officials of the Central and State Governments have begun taking effective steps to manage the park with a firm hand and resolve the problems, including resettlement of the Gujjars, in a rational manner.

``We believe it is wrong to instigate the Gujjars to take over the forests and continue to live as they are doing now, without education, health care and deprived of some of their basic rights, such as right to vote,'' the FOD Society says.

``Most Gujjars have stopped their annual migration to the higher mountain ranges and now stay in the park throughout the year. This has increased the pressure on the forests moreover, the Gujjars are not tribals in the sense in which some communities of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa are. They are thus not self- sufficient inside the forests and depend on the sale of milk for their survival,'' says the FOD.

The government's priority should therefore be to restore this wildlife habitat by checking overgrazing and exploitation of the Shivalik forests by these pastoral nomads as well as people of the neighbouring villages, the FOD Society has stressed.