Isro, drones blow lid off encroachment in CG tiger reserve

Raipur: Satellite imagery from ISRO's CARTOSAT, backed by drone surveys, exposed a disturbing trail of large-scale encroachment in a protected area of Udanti-Sitanadi Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh's Gariyaband district.Satellite feed from 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2022, along with drone mapping revealed that around 1 lakh trees had been illegally felled over 106 hectares (265 acres) of encroached core forest land in the reserve. This forest belt — notified in 1974 to protect giant sal trees — had been stripped bare in parts over 15 years in the core wildlife habitat and Mahanadi catchment area.Officials said the high-resolution images allowed them to identify individual encroachments, fields, felled trees and stumps with up to 10cm of clarity. Forest officials alleged 166 encroachers from Jaitpuri village had occupied the land in Sitanadi range despite owning plots in revenue areas. The department registered preliminary offence reports and issued notices, with eviction and legal action set to follow. After eviction, the department plans groundwater conservation and large-scale tree plantation to restore the damaged forest.The matter surfaced after a team led by Udanti-Sitanadi sanctuary deputy director Varun Jain started preparing panchnamas and counting stumps in the affected area. Officials said several stumps had allegedly been burnt to destroy evidence, while fresh tree cutting and girdling — peeling bark to kill trees — were still being carried out to expand encroachment."We found that the scale of encroachment, which stood at 45 hectares in 2011, had grown to 106 hectares over the next decade. In many patches, tree density crashed from nearly 1,000 trees per hectare to barely 25–50, indicating systematic clearing for cultivation," Jain said.The ecological damage is serious as Sitanadi is not only part of the Mahanadi catchment but also a crucial habitat for elephants, leopards and tigers. Officials said large-scale encroachment in such a sensitive zone may already have worsened habitat loss and man-animal conflict, even as the reserve management said it had removed encroachments from 850 hectares in the past three years and arrested more than 600 poachers, smugglers and encroachers, helping bring human-wildlife conflict in the area close to zero.Charges under Wildlife Protection Act can attract imprisonment of up to seven years, while provisions relating to damage to public property can add up to three years, Jain said, adding that properties allegedly bought through illegal earnings may also be attached.Local sources said some arrests in such cases were made in 2011, but due to tardy investigation, those arrested were acquitted within a year. Thereafter, they allegedly resumed expanding encroachment.