GUWAHATI, March 6 - The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and Chief Wildlife Warden of the State has asked the Field Director of the Kaziranga Tiger Reserve to initiate steps for preventing destruction of wild animal corridors in the Karbi Anglong areas and also to restore these corridors.
The PCCF and Chief Wildlife Warden�s letter came in the wake of complaints that stone mining activities in Karbi Anglong hills have affected the corridors used by wild animals for their movement between Kaziranga National Park (KNP) and Karbi Anglong hills. Environment activist Rohit Choudhury had moved the Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court in connection with stone mining activities in Karbi Anglong hills adjoining Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve.
The PCCF and Chief Wildlife Warden has stated in his letter that as reported by the Divisional Forest Officer, Eastern Assam Wildlife Division, there had been immense damage to the wild animal corridors in the areas of Karbi Anglong abutting Kaziranga National Park.
The damage has been multi-pronged. Surface areas have been denuded of vegetation cover, rivulets reaching the KNP have been exposed to further erosion, besides breaking the integrity of the wildlife habitat and putting wild animals to stress, he said.
�We need to get the habitat restored through the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council as early as possible. At the same time, we should ensure that there is no recurrence of such destructive activity in the watershed areas of Kaziranga (National) Park.
�For the long term survival of long-ranging species, like elephants, rhinoceros and tigers in Kaziranga landscape, the integrity of existing habitat in Karbi Anglong is essential. Without the upland forests of Karbi Anglong and their connectivity to the wildlife habitats further south, the future of Kaziranga is uncertain, given the fact that global climate change may unleash a catastrophe of floods of unimaginable proportion in the not too distant future.
