BHUBANESWAR: With the formation of new government in the state, experts have called for an immediate attention towards conservation of flora and fauna whose over exploitation has depleted the biodiversity of many environmentally sensitive areas.
In a case study done at Mandasaru village, by this correspondent with Basudev Mahapatra, an environmental journalist, found that once an environmentally diverse area is slowly getting deprived of its resources due to over exploitative methods of individuals and organisations.
Situated 300 km south of Bhubaneswar, Mandasaru, has a unique gorge ecosystem in the eastern part of Kandhamal district of the state. The village was recently declared a Biodiversity Heritage Site (BHS) by Odisha Biodiversity Board. It is one of the 14 BHSs in India, and the first in Odisha to get such a status.
According to a report published by divisional forest office of Phulbani (Kandhamal), in 2017, the gorge harboured terrestrial, aquatic, arboreal, and cave-dwelling fauna comprising 30 species of mammals, 150 species of birds, 148 butterfly species and more than 100 other species of different categories.
“Mandasaru is rich in biodiversity with two species of otters, about 40 orchid species, 150 medicinal plant species, a number of wild food plants and tubers, nearly 125 mushroom species of which 20 are edible,” said Prasad Kumar Dash, scientist at Odisha Biodiversity Board.
Although the indigenous and other forest dwellers have carefully utilised the rich flora and fauna, environmentalists say that timber theft and overuse of plants for medicinal and commercial purposes is slowly depleting the area of its rich green cover.
“Water table in the area is going down and summers have got warmer. Water streams in the gorge are no longer perennial. The wells are drying out and that’s why we have to draw out water from the tube well that is connected to a solar-powered pump,” said Gaura Pradhan, village committee president of Mandasaru.
While Mandasaru remains one of the many villages fighting to keep its biodiversity intact, encroachments into wild have also increased human-animal conflict. The Wildlife Society of Odisha stated that elephants, the worst affected, have observed an average mortality of 33 per year between 1990 and 2000, the number grew to 46 per year between 2000 and 2010 and reached an alarming average of 73 elephants per year from 2010-11 to 2017-18.
“Not just elephants but tigers, leopards and other wild animals are regularly straying into urban localities. This is largely due to habitat loss and the consequential decrease in their prey count,” explained Santosh Kumar Das, a former forest officer.
“Take for instance, Sindhrimalo village in Malkangiri district. It used to be a virgin forest of area more than 5,650 hectare. However, constant and reckless encroachments have reduced the area to a mere 200 hectare within just 30 years,” Das explained.
Suggesting ways to conserve the biodiversity, Das highlighted that Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC) that are formed in compliance with the Biological Diversity Act (BD Act), 2002 should be given more power and the local communities must be made more aware of their forest rights.
Amit Kumar Mallick, president of Sugadabadi BMC, said that members of a BMC must include local panchayati raj institution leaders, a forester and community representatives with knowledge of plants and animals. “No outsider shall be allowed to access forest resources without permission of the BMC and profits must be shared with the local community,” Mallick suggested.
Speaking on reducing human-animal conflicts, Das said that forest department should be properly staffed which at present is “struggling with lack of manpower.” “For an area of more than 100 sq km there are only eight to 10 forest guards which is nowhere near to the minimum requirement,” Das lamented.
Aviral Mishra, OP
