Three big cats, one tiger cub and two leopards have been killed in the last ten days in road accidents in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. However, the latest mantra of the Green Ministry, to fast track environmental clearances specially of infra projects, the wildlife experts and environmentalists have expressed concern.
According to them, projects having environmental implications are bound to take their due course as they involve studies on Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) which is time consuming. Expediting such cases is likely to result in wildlife moving out of forests aggravating man-animal conflicts resulting in loss of both wildlife and human.
On Saturday last, a female cub was killed in a road accident in Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh. According to reports and versions of forest officials, she was run over by a speeding vehicle about 65 kms away from Kanha Tiger Reserve. Her mutilated body was found on Balihar- Balaghat Road in Balaghat district. The cub was eight months old and was earlier spotted with her mother in the forest area. Balaghat is one of the non-protected areas where densities of prey and tigers are comparatively high and it falls in Kanha-Pench corridor.
On the same day, an eight-year-old leopard had also died near Sarvakundla range in Amreli district of Gujarat. According to the forest officials, this was the third incident since April 1 when wild animals have died in road accident.
Earlier, on May 16, a four-year-old male leopard was run over on Una-Kodinar highway in Junagadh district. On April 1, two lions were run over by speeding vehicle on Bhavnagar-Somnath coastal highway. A group of lions was crossing the busy coastal highway on April 1 night near Jafarabad, but a vehicle ran over them. Both lions had died on the spot.
According to Kishore Rithe, environmentalist and former member of National Board For Wildlife, launching of online application process for environmental clearance will certainly give transparency but projects that have serious environmental implications certainly cannot be expedited. “It requires EIA study done for at least three seasons. Preparing reports on impacts on environment and mitigation processes is a time taking mechanism”, he said.
Tito Joseph, Programme Coordinator Wildlife Protection Society of India, sharing Rithe’s concen added that incidents of road accidents of the big cats are pointers to the fact that developmental projects can not be done away hastily.
The impact assessment can not be done sitting in office. Unless the necessary checks and balances are observed, both man and wildlife will be at the receiving end of mutual conflicts.
“Given that major wildlife protected areas cover only 4 per cent of our land, generally while upgrading highways the goal should be to go around Protected Areas rather than through them.
Further mitigation measure can include closures at night, over passes and under passes for animal movement and strictly imposed speed limits etc”, said Ullas Karanth, wildlife expert.