The Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary is inching towards getting the status of a tiger reserve. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has seen the point of the officials of Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary that falls under Haldwani forest division, in regard to declaring the said sanctuary a tiger reserve.
The authorities of the NTCA have already visited the sanctuary here in Haldwani and discussed the modalities about how the process could be facilitated for granting the tiger reserve status to the said sanctuary.
A team of experts from the NTCA has already visited here to see whether the sanctuary could be converted into a tiger reserve, said PC Arya, SDO, Nandhaur Wildlie Sanctuary, while talking to The Pioneer.
Following the directions of the NTCA team, a draft has been proposed and soon it will be submitted to the NTCA for granting the status of a tiger reserve to the said sanctuary, Arya further said.
It is worth mentioning that paucity of fund is one of the major factors that has necessitated for bringing the Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary in Haldwani forest division under the tiger reserve
category.
As the forest officials concerned informed, no fund has been allocated to carry out conservation works even after about three years since declaration of the Nandhaur valley as a wildlife sanctuary.
The Nandhaur wildlife sanctuary is rich in bio-diversity and flora and fauna. But paucity of funds is hitting even the routine wildlife conservation activities hard in this sanctuary, said officials.
Earlier, the Nandhaur valley was just a reserve area. Since it has now been declared as a sanctuary, therefore, its guidelines are different as far as wildlife conservation is concerned. So the challenges are also huge after declaring the Nandhaur valley as a wildlife sanctuary, the wildlife experts maintain.
To meet these certain sanctuary guidelines and challenges, adequate fund is a must, the officials maintained.
“Since we have not received any fund for the development of the sanctuary, therefore we are working to get the sanctuary declared as tiger reserve because special funds are allocated for the tiger reserves across the country. Therefore, we are hopeful that once a tiger reserve status is granted, it will open more channels for fund for the latter,” added the officials concerned.
Presently, among other factors, poaching is a major threat to this wildlife sanctuary. Therefore, adequate resources are required to meet these challenges. The Nandhaur wildlife sanctuary consists of mainly Sal, Shisham, Bamboo, Teak, Chir Pine and riverine forests and houses tiger, leopard, elephant, Sloth Bear, Mahaseer and Great Pied Hornbill to name a few.