This is the link to my story with my colleague Basheer in The Hindu on 16.3.2010:
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/16/stories/2010031662860500.htm
The text is as follows:
(Picture caption: Topsy-turvy:Children of a seaside hamlet in the State show how to beat the heat. Temperatures have been hovering close to record levels for the past couple of weeks.)
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Indications are in favour of a couple of evening showers in many parts of Kerala towards the second half of this week, provided the volatile interplay of all known and unknown factors that govern the weather systems behave to expectations.
Responding to a question whether there would be any rain soon over the State, P.V. Joseph, former Director of India Meteorological Department (IMD), said on Monday that a long band of clouds had formed stretching over a length of nearly 1,000 kilometres over the Indian Ocean, some 500 km to the south of the Indian Peninsula.
The normal tendency of this cloud band would be to move north. It might come gliding slowly, bringing a couple of showers over Kerala in another two or three days. Do not expect them to be anything more than light evening showers; yet these showers could bring down the temperatures over the State for a while. The summer would stretch ahead, he told The Hindu.
Speaking of the unusually hot weather at the beginning of this summer, Dr. Joseph, an internationally reputable climate expert, said one need not search for its reasons beyond the simple reality of global warming. The summer of 2009 had been the hottest of last 100 years in the country. The months of January and February this year brought hardly any rain over Kerala. In March, the State usually got a couple of widespread showers. That too was confined to a few pockets in the State this time.
K. Santhosh, Director of the Thiruvananthapuram meteorology centre, said the wind-flow pattern over the peninsula so far this month had not been the usual one for this time of the season. Usually, moist north-westerly winds from the direction of the Arabian Sea would meet with southerly or south-easterly winds from the Indian Ocean around this time of the year, forming a trough extending from interior Karnataka to the tip of the peninsula. This would cause clouding and a few thundershowers, keeping a bridle on the temperatures.
This time, there had been stronger northerly/north-easterly dry winds pressing down the warm land mass along the eastern flank of the peninsula, overpowering the flow of the south-easterly winds from the Indian Ocean and thus preventing the latter's interaction with the north-westerly winds for the formation of the usual north-south trough along the peninsula.
The dry northerly/north-easterly winds dominating the overall wind systems over the peninsula was one reason for the higher than usual temperatures in Kerala so far in March this time.
Temperatures so far this month have not crossed the “highest-ever recorded” (as was being reported in some sections of the media) in any place in the State, according to data maintained at the meteorology centre here.
The highest recorded so far this month was 39.4 degrees Celsius in Punalur on March 3. The highest-ever recorded for the centre was 40.6 degrees Celsius on March 29, 1992 and March 31, 1983.
However, the first 15 days of March in Kerala had been, on the whole, hotter than March of 2009.
In 10 of the 11 main temperature recording stations of the IMD, maximum daytime temperatures this March have exceeded last year's by between 0.1 degrees Celsius and 1.8 degrees Celsius.
In Palakkad, where the Revenue Department recorded a maximum temperature of 42 degrees Celsius on a certain day this month, the IMD's temperature recording facility is temporarily non-functional.
*****
Monday, March 15, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
On the prowl
This is the second of the two stories I had written last year about the unusually aggressive behaviour of a tusker in Periyar Tiger Reserve. I searched out this story hearing today the killer tusker could be back. This story appeared in the Sunday Magazine of The Hindu. This is the link:
http://www.thehindu.com/mag/2009/05/10/stories/2009051050130400.htm
And, the following is the text:
*****
Indiscriminate poaching, leading to a drastic reduction of tuskers, may be responsible for a young tusker turning a killer in the Periyar Tiger Reserve.
Photo: Special Arrangement
Unusual aggression: The suspected “killer” tusker (close to the lake), watched by a fidgety herd of cow elephants.
*****
Kannan, a forest watcher in Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala, who intimately knows the ways of the wild, says there is something unusual about this tusker. “I saw this young tusker violently bullying a cow elephant in the forests last year. The cow wanted to back off, but the tusker would not let go and the fight went on for a long time down a valley before subsiding,” he says. The next day they found the cow elephant dead some distance away from the scene of the fight.
Off and on during the last couple of years, especially in the months of February, March and April, there have been elephant killings in Periyar. The reserve authorities found the situation assuming a serious dimension when seven elephants were found dead one after another in a particular area within a short span of six weeks from February 26 to April 5 this year. In all the cases where post-mortem examinations could be done in time, no pathogens and no signs such as tusk removal to indicate the role of poachers were found. The deaths were attributed to “injuries sustained in fights with a tusker and subsequent infections.”
Unusually aggressive
And the tusker the forest watcher had seen fighting was seen roaming in the territory with signs of musth, a periodical condition in the elephant when testosterone levels shoot up, raising the animal’s libido and making it aggressive.
An expert team that studied the circumstances of the killings concluded that this tusker in musth, the only one to be seen in the area during the period of the killings, must be the killer. Trackers are behind it watching its behaviour.
“Elephant fights in the wild are not uncommon and some fights lead to deaths. Bulls fight for dominance in a herd. But so many deaths happening in the same locality, apparently in fights with one particular tusker, is uncommon and needs to be looked into,” says Dr. P.S. Easa, a member of the IUCN’s Asian Elephant Specialist Group.
Five of the seven recent killings in the PTR were of cow elephants. One was a sub-adult female and the other a sub-adult male. Dr. Jacob V. Cheeran, veterinary and wildlife expert, who was in the expert team constituted by the State Wildlife Department to study the development, notes that the cows were gored by the tusker from the side, while the sub-adult male victim was gored head-on. “Apparently, this tusker tends to go beyond the normal aggressive behaviour of a musth elephant while accosting cow elephants for courtship,” he says.
Possible reason
Dr. Raman Sukumar, elephant expert and professor of Ecology at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, postulates that the apparent unusual behaviour of the tusker could be due the absence of senior tuskers in the herd.
Poaching was a serious problem in the area in the 1970s, according to him. All big tuskers of the area vanished during that period and the bulls that remained were mostly makhanas, which have no tusks. Some of the male calves of a new generation are just beginning to mature into full grown tuskers. Normally, at this stage, such bulls misbehaving in a herd would be shown their place by a senior bull. “The problem now in Periyar could be due to the lack of this disciplining influence, the proper hierarchy,” he says.
Similar phenomenon
Such aggressive behaviour had been reported among African elephants in Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa. There the young elephants had gone after rhinos on a killing spree in the 1990s after their parents were culled from the herds to control the population. The killings stopped when six big tuskers were introduced to the park, virtually as enforcers of law and order.
“We are putting the animal under surveillance. Let us be sure first before deciding on the best way to handle the situation,” says Kerala’s Chief Wildlife Warden K.P. Ouseph.
According to Dr. Sukumar, the development need not be taken as a threat to the elephant population in the area. The 925-km tiger reserve is also a Project Elephant area with a roaming elephant population of over 1,000, as per the last wildlife census.
*****
http://www.thehindu.com/mag/2009/05/10/stories/2009051050130400.htm
And, the following is the text:
*****
Indiscriminate poaching, leading to a drastic reduction of tuskers, may be responsible for a young tusker turning a killer in the Periyar Tiger Reserve.
Photo: Special Arrangement
Unusual aggression: The suspected “killer” tusker (close to the lake), watched by a fidgety herd of cow elephants.
*****
Kannan, a forest watcher in Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala, who intimately knows the ways of the wild, says there is something unusual about this tusker. “I saw this young tusker violently bullying a cow elephant in the forests last year. The cow wanted to back off, but the tusker would not let go and the fight went on for a long time down a valley before subsiding,” he says. The next day they found the cow elephant dead some distance away from the scene of the fight.
Off and on during the last couple of years, especially in the months of February, March and April, there have been elephant killings in Periyar. The reserve authorities found the situation assuming a serious dimension when seven elephants were found dead one after another in a particular area within a short span of six weeks from February 26 to April 5 this year. In all the cases where post-mortem examinations could be done in time, no pathogens and no signs such as tusk removal to indicate the role of poachers were found. The deaths were attributed to “injuries sustained in fights with a tusker and subsequent infections.”
Unusually aggressive
And the tusker the forest watcher had seen fighting was seen roaming in the territory with signs of musth, a periodical condition in the elephant when testosterone levels shoot up, raising the animal’s libido and making it aggressive.
An expert team that studied the circumstances of the killings concluded that this tusker in musth, the only one to be seen in the area during the period of the killings, must be the killer. Trackers are behind it watching its behaviour.
“Elephant fights in the wild are not uncommon and some fights lead to deaths. Bulls fight for dominance in a herd. But so many deaths happening in the same locality, apparently in fights with one particular tusker, is uncommon and needs to be looked into,” says Dr. P.S. Easa, a member of the IUCN’s Asian Elephant Specialist Group.
Five of the seven recent killings in the PTR were of cow elephants. One was a sub-adult female and the other a sub-adult male. Dr. Jacob V. Cheeran, veterinary and wildlife expert, who was in the expert team constituted by the State Wildlife Department to study the development, notes that the cows were gored by the tusker from the side, while the sub-adult male victim was gored head-on. “Apparently, this tusker tends to go beyond the normal aggressive behaviour of a musth elephant while accosting cow elephants for courtship,” he says.
Possible reason
Dr. Raman Sukumar, elephant expert and professor of Ecology at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, postulates that the apparent unusual behaviour of the tusker could be due the absence of senior tuskers in the herd.
Poaching was a serious problem in the area in the 1970s, according to him. All big tuskers of the area vanished during that period and the bulls that remained were mostly makhanas, which have no tusks. Some of the male calves of a new generation are just beginning to mature into full grown tuskers. Normally, at this stage, such bulls misbehaving in a herd would be shown their place by a senior bull. “The problem now in Periyar could be due to the lack of this disciplining influence, the proper hierarchy,” he says.
Similar phenomenon
Such aggressive behaviour had been reported among African elephants in Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa. There the young elephants had gone after rhinos on a killing spree in the 1990s after their parents were culled from the herds to control the population. The killings stopped when six big tuskers were introduced to the park, virtually as enforcers of law and order.
“We are putting the animal under surveillance. Let us be sure first before deciding on the best way to handle the situation,” says Kerala’s Chief Wildlife Warden K.P. Ouseph.
According to Dr. Sukumar, the development need not be taken as a threat to the elephant population in the area. The 925-km tiger reserve is also a Project Elephant area with a roaming elephant population of over 1,000, as per the last wildlife census.
*****
Tusker in musth may be the killer
I searched out this story I had filed last year on hearing today that the killer tusker may be back in Periyar Tiger Reserve once again. Forest officials found the carcass of a cow elephant in the lake there today, with indications of the death being the result of an attack of a tusker. Does it mean the killing spree, which we heard about last year, is not over? I propose to follow up.
This is the link to the first of two of my earlier stories:
http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/13/stories/2009041359510500.htm
And, this is the text of the story:
************************************************
Photo by special arrangement:
Rescue bid: Forest guards tend to a wild elephant incapacitated by injuries sustained in the “attack of a tusker in musth” in the Periyar Tiger Reserve. This elephant, which died on April 5 a couple of days after being spotted in very bad condition by the Periyar lakeside, was the seventh victim of the yet-to-be identified “killer tusker.”
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An inter-disciplinary expert team that studied the circumstances leading to the death of seven elephants in the Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Kerala over the last six weeks has concluded that the killings could be the work of a wild tusker in musth.
When in musth, elephants become aggressive and sexually active. This is a periodic condition in male bull elephants (though rare instances of cow elephants coming into musth too have been reported in a few recent studies).
Elephants in musth secrete a thick tar-like fluid from their temporal ducts on either side of the head. Such a full-grown tusker has been spotted in the area from where the killings were reported, but no injuries sustained in fights with other elephants were visible on it.
“Our first challenge is to correctly identify the killer. We can decide on the best course of action only after monitoring the animal’s behaviour and evaluating various options… And the musth condition will pass after running its course,” said PTR Field Director O.P. Kaler.
The team comprising wildlife experts, elephant specialists, veterinarians, pathologists and top conservation officials visited the locations from where the carcasses of the wild elephants were found. The team obtained sufficient evidence to conclude that the deaths were “due to traumatic injuries caused by the attacks of a tusker and subsequent infections,” said forest veterinary officer E.K. Easwaran.
The dead elephants had sustained fatal injuries such as deep wounds (15 to 25 cm deep) in the neck and skull and other parts of the body. No pathogen could be detected in the carcasses subjected to post-mortem examination.
“Similar incidents have been reported from other parts of the world too, both among African elephants and Asian elephants. But a majority of them involved fights between tuskers for dominance as they moved after herds to seek out receptive cow elephants,” said P.S. Easa, a member of the IUCN’s Asian Elephant Specialist Group, who was in the expert team constituted by the State Wildlife Department to study the development.
In the PTR, however, five of the killed were adult cow elephants. One was a sub-adult female and the remaining one a sub-adult male. “For so many cow elephants to die in fights (apparently with a rogue wild tusker) within a short period of six weeks is somewhat unusual,” Dr. Easa said.
Eleven tusker deaths were reported in fights among elephants in the Corbett National Park in 2008. There had also been six cow elephant killings in various wildlife tracts of Tamil Nadu during the last two years.
The team’s report to the Chief Wildlife Warden said the killings in the PTR could be due to the musth elephant slipping “beyond the limits of normal aggressive behaviour” while accosting cow elephants for courtship. Besides being a Tiger Reserve, the 925-sq-km Periyar sanctuary is also a Project Elephant area with a roaming elephant population of more than 1,000, according to the last wildlife census.
Tranquillising the killer and having its tusks trimmed to make it less dangerous is one of the options before the wildlife staff, but the hilly terrain and the lake skirting the hills of the region could make the exercise somewhat dangerous.
The elephant, under the influence of the tranquilliser, could fall down a slope and die or wander into the lake and drown.
*****
This is the link to the first of two of my earlier stories:
http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/13/stories/2009041359510500.htm
And, this is the text of the story:
************************************************
Photo by special arrangement:
Rescue bid: Forest guards tend to a wild elephant incapacitated by injuries sustained in the “attack of a tusker in musth” in the Periyar Tiger Reserve. This elephant, which died on April 5 a couple of days after being spotted in very bad condition by the Periyar lakeside, was the seventh victim of the yet-to-be identified “killer tusker.”
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An inter-disciplinary expert team that studied the circumstances leading to the death of seven elephants in the Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Kerala over the last six weeks has concluded that the killings could be the work of a wild tusker in musth.
When in musth, elephants become aggressive and sexually active. This is a periodic condition in male bull elephants (though rare instances of cow elephants coming into musth too have been reported in a few recent studies).
Elephants in musth secrete a thick tar-like fluid from their temporal ducts on either side of the head. Such a full-grown tusker has been spotted in the area from where the killings were reported, but no injuries sustained in fights with other elephants were visible on it.
“Our first challenge is to correctly identify the killer. We can decide on the best course of action only after monitoring the animal’s behaviour and evaluating various options… And the musth condition will pass after running its course,” said PTR Field Director O.P. Kaler.
The team comprising wildlife experts, elephant specialists, veterinarians, pathologists and top conservation officials visited the locations from where the carcasses of the wild elephants were found. The team obtained sufficient evidence to conclude that the deaths were “due to traumatic injuries caused by the attacks of a tusker and subsequent infections,” said forest veterinary officer E.K. Easwaran.
The dead elephants had sustained fatal injuries such as deep wounds (15 to 25 cm deep) in the neck and skull and other parts of the body. No pathogen could be detected in the carcasses subjected to post-mortem examination.
“Similar incidents have been reported from other parts of the world too, both among African elephants and Asian elephants. But a majority of them involved fights between tuskers for dominance as they moved after herds to seek out receptive cow elephants,” said P.S. Easa, a member of the IUCN’s Asian Elephant Specialist Group, who was in the expert team constituted by the State Wildlife Department to study the development.
In the PTR, however, five of the killed were adult cow elephants. One was a sub-adult female and the remaining one a sub-adult male. “For so many cow elephants to die in fights (apparently with a rogue wild tusker) within a short period of six weeks is somewhat unusual,” Dr. Easa said.
Eleven tusker deaths were reported in fights among elephants in the Corbett National Park in 2008. There had also been six cow elephant killings in various wildlife tracts of Tamil Nadu during the last two years.
The team’s report to the Chief Wildlife Warden said the killings in the PTR could be due to the musth elephant slipping “beyond the limits of normal aggressive behaviour” while accosting cow elephants for courtship. Besides being a Tiger Reserve, the 925-sq-km Periyar sanctuary is also a Project Elephant area with a roaming elephant population of more than 1,000, according to the last wildlife census.
Tranquillising the killer and having its tusks trimmed to make it less dangerous is one of the options before the wildlife staff, but the hilly terrain and the lake skirting the hills of the region could make the exercise somewhat dangerous.
The elephant, under the influence of the tranquilliser, could fall down a slope and die or wander into the lake and drown.
*****
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
A slew of welfare measures in Kerala Budget
This is the link to my story on Kerala budget published in The Hindu on 6.3.2010:
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/06/stories/2010030664481100.htm
And, this is the text:
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has proposed a slew of welfare measures, including rice at Rs.2 a kg to 35 lakh families, in the Kerala budget for 2010-11 presented in the State Assembly on Friday.
All welfare pensions too are being increased to Rs.300 from the present level of Rs.250 a month.
In what he called a “red and green budget,” he also proposed the setting up of a Rs.1,000 crore fund over the next five years for programmes intended to expand the green cover over the land, restore to health ecosystems (such as Kuttanad) that had deteriorated in the recent decades due to human activities, nourish to resplendence the biodiversity of the countryside and keep a rein on energy consumption and carbon emission.
The third characteristic of the budget is its gender sensitivity. It sets apart Rs.620 crore spread across several departments for programmes meant exclusively for women. Making decent women’s toilets in public places, designating more than 200 police stations “women friendly” and building hostels for working women are some of the measures contemplated under this head.
The budget envisages a revenue expenditure of Rs.34,810.37 crore against revenue receipts expected at Rs.31,180.81 crore, leaving a revenue deficit of Rs.3,629.55 crore. The capital expenditure is estimated to come to Rs.4,135.88 crore in the year. It aims at an additional resource mobilisation of Rs.874.14 crore to support the new programmes. A bulk of this additional resource is expected to come from the hard liquor, the duty on which is being hiked by 10 per cent. There is, however, a benevolent prod in the budget for consumers of liquor to shift to healthier drinking habits through a reduction in the duty on soft liquors such as beer and wine.
Welfare measures announced include an income support scheme (Rs.50 crore allocation) for handloom and handicraft workers, general health insurance with an additional coverage of Rs.70,000 for cancer and heart ailments and kidney problems for the poor and a hike in grant to inmates of orphanages and old age homes.
Fifty per cent of the Rs.1,000-crore fund to be mobilised in five years for the green initiatives is to come from the sale of sand from various reservoirs now being de-silted in the State.
Imported sugar is being exempted from duty and the tax on handmade soaps and ghee is being brought down to 4 per cent. Luxury tax on hotel rooms will go down by 2.5 per cent. The tax compounding rates for gold dealers are being revised to 105 per cent, 110 per cent, 115 per cent and 125 per cent for turnovers of up to Rs.10 lakh, Rs.40 lakh and Rs.1 crore and above Rs.1 crore respectively.
The budget also proposes reducing the stamp duty on land registrations to 9 per cent in the cities, 8 per cent in the towns and 7 per cent in the villages. The tax on luxury cars (with engine capacity of 1,500 cc and above) is being increased by 2 per cent.
Dr. Isaac has provided substantial increases in allocation for sectors such as higher education, IT and traditional sectors including fisheries, coir, cashew and handloom.
***
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/06/stories/2010030664481100.htm
And, this is the text:
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has proposed a slew of welfare measures, including rice at Rs.2 a kg to 35 lakh families, in the Kerala budget for 2010-11 presented in the State Assembly on Friday.
All welfare pensions too are being increased to Rs.300 from the present level of Rs.250 a month.
In what he called a “red and green budget,” he also proposed the setting up of a Rs.1,000 crore fund over the next five years for programmes intended to expand the green cover over the land, restore to health ecosystems (such as Kuttanad) that had deteriorated in the recent decades due to human activities, nourish to resplendence the biodiversity of the countryside and keep a rein on energy consumption and carbon emission.
The third characteristic of the budget is its gender sensitivity. It sets apart Rs.620 crore spread across several departments for programmes meant exclusively for women. Making decent women’s toilets in public places, designating more than 200 police stations “women friendly” and building hostels for working women are some of the measures contemplated under this head.
The budget envisages a revenue expenditure of Rs.34,810.37 crore against revenue receipts expected at Rs.31,180.81 crore, leaving a revenue deficit of Rs.3,629.55 crore. The capital expenditure is estimated to come to Rs.4,135.88 crore in the year. It aims at an additional resource mobilisation of Rs.874.14 crore to support the new programmes. A bulk of this additional resource is expected to come from the hard liquor, the duty on which is being hiked by 10 per cent. There is, however, a benevolent prod in the budget for consumers of liquor to shift to healthier drinking habits through a reduction in the duty on soft liquors such as beer and wine.
Welfare measures announced include an income support scheme (Rs.50 crore allocation) for handloom and handicraft workers, general health insurance with an additional coverage of Rs.70,000 for cancer and heart ailments and kidney problems for the poor and a hike in grant to inmates of orphanages and old age homes.
Fifty per cent of the Rs.1,000-crore fund to be mobilised in five years for the green initiatives is to come from the sale of sand from various reservoirs now being de-silted in the State.
Imported sugar is being exempted from duty and the tax on handmade soaps and ghee is being brought down to 4 per cent. Luxury tax on hotel rooms will go down by 2.5 per cent. The tax compounding rates for gold dealers are being revised to 105 per cent, 110 per cent, 115 per cent and 125 per cent for turnovers of up to Rs.10 lakh, Rs.40 lakh and Rs.1 crore and above Rs.1 crore respectively.
The budget also proposes reducing the stamp duty on land registrations to 9 per cent in the cities, 8 per cent in the towns and 7 per cent in the villages. The tax on luxury cars (with engine capacity of 1,500 cc and above) is being increased by 2 per cent.
Dr. Isaac has provided substantial increases in allocation for sectors such as higher education, IT and traditional sectors including fisheries, coir, cashew and handloom.
***
PCCF argues case for notifying Munnar
This is the link to my story on Munnar published in The Hindu on 10.3.2010: http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/10/stories/2010031054100400.htm
And, this is the text:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Idukki Collector had warned against notifying 17,000 acres
PCCF attributes warning to ‘lack of proper information'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) T.M. Manoharan has questioned the points raised by the District Collector of Idukki in his letter dated January 25 this year warning the State government against notifying over 17,000 acres of weakly guarded government land in Munnar region as reserve forests.
In a 20-page letter dated February 25 in reply to the Collector's letter, Mr. Manoharan said he was “constrained to conclude… the letter is the result of a lack of proper information or lack of proper appreciation of the real facts and history of the issue.”
History of Hills
He described the whole history of the Kannan Devan Hills from the 19 {+t} {+h} century — how an extent of 227 sq miles of these vast mountainous tract of forests and grasslands had come into the hands of J.D. Monroe on lease from the Poonjar Chief in 1877, how tea plantations came up in a portion of the area, how most of the plantations were purchased in 1895 by James Finlay and Company, how the rights of Poonjar Chief were vested in the Government of Travancore in 1899 and how the Government of Kerala, in 1971, resumed possession of the entire region through the Kannan Devan Hills (Resumption of Lands) Act.
The Land Board constituted under the Act had allowed Kannan Devan Hills Produce Company (owned by the James Finley Group) to retain 57,359 acres of the land vide its order in 1974, while vesting 70,522.12 acres of land with the government, free from all encumbrances. An expert committee was constituted by the government in 1975 to decide how the area vested with the government should be utilised.
Land Board award
Following the Land Board's award and subsequent government orders, one modifying the other, an extent of 43,242.55 acres was finally ordered to be left undisturbed as forests and wilderness.
The order also demarcated an extent of 17,922 acres for afforestation, 5,189 acres for assignment to the landless, 3,824.85 acres for dairy development initiatives and 272.21 acres for housing. The modified order put the total area thus with the government as 70,450.61 acres.
Mr. Manoharan described various events that had happened over the ensuing years in the case of the 43,242.55 acres ordered to be left as it is. The Eravikulam National Park had come up in part of the area.
There had been quite a lot land assignments in Mankulam, forming another part of the area, and there had been encroachments too in Mankulam, according to inquiry committee reports. An extent of 22,253.37 acres of land in Mankulam was notified as reserve forests on May 16, 2007.
The proposed notification the Collector had warned the government against issuing, without fresh verification, related to the extent of 17,922 acres that was ordered to be used for afforestation as per the Land Board award and subsequent government orders.
Referring to this central issue, Mr. Manoharan said that the Forest Department had taken over [on record] this area of 17,922 acres on the strength of government orders issued in 1980 and 1988. Though this area was taken over by the Forest Department, it had not been notified as reserve forests to bring it under the protective umbrella of the Kerala Forest Act of 1961.
Legal aspects
Describing how, with mounting pressure on land, there had been complaints of encroachment in this area, Mr. Manoharan said the shola forests, grasslands and valuable forest plantations of the territory, “if not notified immediately as reserve forests, are likely to be encroached upon and the rich species and habitat diversity of these forests are likely to disappear.”
Discussing the legal aspects of the issue, Mr. Manoharan said the Supreme Court, in its judgment in WP(C) 202/95 dated 12.12.1996, had defined the term ‘forests' as an area to be understood according to the dictionary meaning. The Supreme Court had gone on to say that the term ‘forest land' would also include any area recorded as forest in government records irrespective of ownership, when the term comes up for interpretation in the context of the Forest Conservation Act.
‘Revenue lands'
In both these senses, this area of 17,922 acres of land would come under the definition of forests. But the land records continue to classify the area as ‘revenue lands.'
“History of protection of revenue purambokes in Kerala would indicate that the laws relating to their protection could not be implemented strongly and strictly due to various socio-political and demographic pressures,” Mr. Manoharan noted.
He described the legal pressures that had been brought on the government to review matters relating to Munnar. A non-governmental organisation called One Earth One Life had filed a public interest petition (PIL) in October 2005 before the Central Empowered Committee constituted by the Supreme Court.
The main prayer of the PIL was for an order urging the government to declare the 17,922 acres, originally set apart for afforestation, as reserve forests. The petitioner had also prayed for action against “misappropriation and alienation of forests” in the area.
High-level meet
Mr. Manoharan mentioned the high level-meeting held on November 11, 2006 which discussed the issue. The Chief Minister, Forest Minister, Revenue Minister, Advocate-General and Chief Secretary were among those who attended the meeting. The notification relating to Mankulam was an outcome of this meeting. It was also decided by the meeting that steps should be taken to notify as reserve forests the 17,922 acres of land that was originally earmarked for afforestation.
The government, vide an order on February 17, 2007, had also accorded sanction to notify the said area as reserve forests. The proposal for notification, along with boundary descriptions, was submitted to the government in 2008. The proposal was later restricted to 17,349.9 acres following a Cabinet subcommittee meeting on October 9, 2008 in Munnar, with the Chief Minister in the chair.
The Ministers of Forests, Home and Tourism and Welfare of Backward and Scheduled Communities too were at the meeting. The others in attendance included the Revenue Principal Secretary and the District Collector himself.
Mr. Manoharan said the procedural initiatives on the part of his department to notify 17,349.90 acres of land in Munnar region as reserve forests should be seen in the context of all these developments.
In his reply to the Collector, he also referred to various expert committee/inquiry committee reports that had brought up the enormity of the problem of encroachment in Munnar. He asked the Collector to view the implications of his letter (warning the government against going ahead with the notification) by placing it against this background.
‘Glaring' issue
In his reply, Mr. Manoharan gave his response to each “glaring” issue the Collector had raised in his letter. Responding to the Collector's view that there should be a fresh verification, he described the procedures subsequent to the declaration of an area as reserve forests. Even if notification is published, the Forest Settlement Officer, who will be designated for the notified area, can consider, inquire into and settle the claims of any person who has right over any piece of land in the notified area. The Kerala Forest Act stipulates this.
Mr. Manoharan mentions in his reply the reports of various expert committees and also the promises the government had given to the judiciary in the matter of notifying the referred to area as reserve forests.
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And, this is the text:
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Idukki Collector had warned against notifying 17,000 acres
PCCF attributes warning to ‘lack of proper information'
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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) T.M. Manoharan has questioned the points raised by the District Collector of Idukki in his letter dated January 25 this year warning the State government against notifying over 17,000 acres of weakly guarded government land in Munnar region as reserve forests.
In a 20-page letter dated February 25 in reply to the Collector's letter, Mr. Manoharan said he was “constrained to conclude… the letter is the result of a lack of proper information or lack of proper appreciation of the real facts and history of the issue.”
History of Hills
He described the whole history of the Kannan Devan Hills from the 19 {+t} {+h} century — how an extent of 227 sq miles of these vast mountainous tract of forests and grasslands had come into the hands of J.D. Monroe on lease from the Poonjar Chief in 1877, how tea plantations came up in a portion of the area, how most of the plantations were purchased in 1895 by James Finlay and Company, how the rights of Poonjar Chief were vested in the Government of Travancore in 1899 and how the Government of Kerala, in 1971, resumed possession of the entire region through the Kannan Devan Hills (Resumption of Lands) Act.
The Land Board constituted under the Act had allowed Kannan Devan Hills Produce Company (owned by the James Finley Group) to retain 57,359 acres of the land vide its order in 1974, while vesting 70,522.12 acres of land with the government, free from all encumbrances. An expert committee was constituted by the government in 1975 to decide how the area vested with the government should be utilised.
Land Board award
Following the Land Board's award and subsequent government orders, one modifying the other, an extent of 43,242.55 acres was finally ordered to be left undisturbed as forests and wilderness.
The order also demarcated an extent of 17,922 acres for afforestation, 5,189 acres for assignment to the landless, 3,824.85 acres for dairy development initiatives and 272.21 acres for housing. The modified order put the total area thus with the government as 70,450.61 acres.
Mr. Manoharan described various events that had happened over the ensuing years in the case of the 43,242.55 acres ordered to be left as it is. The Eravikulam National Park had come up in part of the area.
There had been quite a lot land assignments in Mankulam, forming another part of the area, and there had been encroachments too in Mankulam, according to inquiry committee reports. An extent of 22,253.37 acres of land in Mankulam was notified as reserve forests on May 16, 2007.
The proposed notification the Collector had warned the government against issuing, without fresh verification, related to the extent of 17,922 acres that was ordered to be used for afforestation as per the Land Board award and subsequent government orders.
Referring to this central issue, Mr. Manoharan said that the Forest Department had taken over [on record] this area of 17,922 acres on the strength of government orders issued in 1980 and 1988. Though this area was taken over by the Forest Department, it had not been notified as reserve forests to bring it under the protective umbrella of the Kerala Forest Act of 1961.
Legal aspects
Describing how, with mounting pressure on land, there had been complaints of encroachment in this area, Mr. Manoharan said the shola forests, grasslands and valuable forest plantations of the territory, “if not notified immediately as reserve forests, are likely to be encroached upon and the rich species and habitat diversity of these forests are likely to disappear.”
Discussing the legal aspects of the issue, Mr. Manoharan said the Supreme Court, in its judgment in WP(C) 202/95 dated 12.12.1996, had defined the term ‘forests' as an area to be understood according to the dictionary meaning. The Supreme Court had gone on to say that the term ‘forest land' would also include any area recorded as forest in government records irrespective of ownership, when the term comes up for interpretation in the context of the Forest Conservation Act.
‘Revenue lands'
In both these senses, this area of 17,922 acres of land would come under the definition of forests. But the land records continue to classify the area as ‘revenue lands.'
“History of protection of revenue purambokes in Kerala would indicate that the laws relating to their protection could not be implemented strongly and strictly due to various socio-political and demographic pressures,” Mr. Manoharan noted.
He described the legal pressures that had been brought on the government to review matters relating to Munnar. A non-governmental organisation called One Earth One Life had filed a public interest petition (PIL) in October 2005 before the Central Empowered Committee constituted by the Supreme Court.
The main prayer of the PIL was for an order urging the government to declare the 17,922 acres, originally set apart for afforestation, as reserve forests. The petitioner had also prayed for action against “misappropriation and alienation of forests” in the area.
High-level meet
Mr. Manoharan mentioned the high level-meeting held on November 11, 2006 which discussed the issue. The Chief Minister, Forest Minister, Revenue Minister, Advocate-General and Chief Secretary were among those who attended the meeting. The notification relating to Mankulam was an outcome of this meeting. It was also decided by the meeting that steps should be taken to notify as reserve forests the 17,922 acres of land that was originally earmarked for afforestation.
The government, vide an order on February 17, 2007, had also accorded sanction to notify the said area as reserve forests. The proposal for notification, along with boundary descriptions, was submitted to the government in 2008. The proposal was later restricted to 17,349.9 acres following a Cabinet subcommittee meeting on October 9, 2008 in Munnar, with the Chief Minister in the chair.
The Ministers of Forests, Home and Tourism and Welfare of Backward and Scheduled Communities too were at the meeting. The others in attendance included the Revenue Principal Secretary and the District Collector himself.
Mr. Manoharan said the procedural initiatives on the part of his department to notify 17,349.90 acres of land in Munnar region as reserve forests should be seen in the context of all these developments.
In his reply to the Collector, he also referred to various expert committee/inquiry committee reports that had brought up the enormity of the problem of encroachment in Munnar. He asked the Collector to view the implications of his letter (warning the government against going ahead with the notification) by placing it against this background.
‘Glaring' issue
In his reply, Mr. Manoharan gave his response to each “glaring” issue the Collector had raised in his letter. Responding to the Collector's view that there should be a fresh verification, he described the procedures subsequent to the declaration of an area as reserve forests. Even if notification is published, the Forest Settlement Officer, who will be designated for the notified area, can consider, inquire into and settle the claims of any person who has right over any piece of land in the notified area. The Kerala Forest Act stipulates this.
Mr. Manoharan mentions in his reply the reports of various expert committees and also the promises the government had given to the judiciary in the matter of notifying the referred to area as reserve forests.
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