Roping in villagers as stakeholders, the forest department, in a move to boost wildlife conservation, has started community wildlife tourism programmes. The move aims at eliminating the need for the forest department to mandatorily set up forest resorts. Community-based home stays will be managed by villagers, who will also act as tour guides. This in turn will generate income for the villagers and also protect forests at the same time.
Principal secretary (forest) Praveensingh Pardeshi said, “The real threat to our ecosystem and wildlife is not from the so-called ‘development’ work, as people are often made to believe. The real threat is from the man-animal conflict and that is what we are trying to curb by our village community programmes.”
More than 217 villages with 11,761 families live inside protected areas. Of these, 55 villages are situated inside tiger reserves. Rehabilitation of villages from national parks and wildlife sanctuaries is a win-win situation for forest dwellers and the long-term survival of wildlife, said Mr Pardeshi.
Joint Forest Management Committees will be given a share in timber produce and supplied LPG, biogas to save fuelwood extraction from protected areas and also provide the villagers in reserved and buffer areas with non extractive means of livelihood.