Jumbo plan: 30-km wall inside forest to keep wildlife out

By: Rajeev.KR@timesgroup.com
KOZHIKODE: In a well-intentioned but obviously quixotic proposal, the state forest department is planning to encircle a forest village in Wayanad with a 30-km granite wall and 4.4 km of additional rail fencing to keep out foraying elephants and other wildlife. The department has, in fact, prepared a detailed project report (DPR) worth Rs 55 crore for Vadakkanad, which borders Karnataka and is a hotbed of man-animal conflict.
Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WWS) authorities prepared the DPR in the backdrop of intense agitation by villagers which saw an assistant wildlife warden held hostage for 22 hours last week. The villagers also staged a 11-day hunger strike in front of WWS warden’s office last month which was called off following assurance given by forest minister K Raju.
Environmentalists have flayed the proposal, terming it unscientific and unviable and evidence of how the department has succumbed to public pressure even on matters as crucial as conservation and conflict mitigation. “It will be a blunder if the project is implemented. How can the government go about making every village a fortress by building walls around them? Also, it comes with huge environmental costs with respect to finding granite stones for building such a large wall. It would also lead to similar solutions from scores of other forest villages leading to greater fragmentation of forest and even blocking of wildlife corridors which will actually increase human- wildlife conflict," said N Badusha, president of Wayanad Prakrithi Samrakshana Samithi.