Forest cover lost to tribal Lambada encroachments

A senior official of the TS forest department said that one of the main issues in conservation of forests is encroachment, mainly by the Lambada community . The Lambada community has been given Scheduled Tribe status in Telangana and AP, which is not the case in most of the states like Maharashtra and Rajasthan where their population is considerably high. The forest official said, “As the two states have accorded ST status to the Lambadas, many of them have migrated here from other states and they have been settling down on forest lands.”

An environmentalist working on forest conservation, choosing to remain anonymous as some Lambada community members occupy powerful positions in the government, said, “It is true that the Lambadas have been encroaching upon forest tracts. It is true also in the case of Gutti Koyas, a community not recognised as ST in TS. While the Lambadas have been encroaching upon forest lands for decades, the encroachment of forest land by the Gutti Koyas is a comparatively newer phenomenon. Forests in Warangal and Khammam, especially the Eturnagaram Wildlife Sanctuary, are under threat because of this. However, the blame squarely falls on forest department officials as they have not been able to stop the encroachments.” He adds, “Why is it that the KBR National Park is encroachment free? It is because it is well protected.”

As per the AP State of Forests Report-2013, Khammam and Warangal had the highest percentage of encroachments of 17.15 sq. km and 10.94 sq. km respectively.

However, a major hurdle in conservation efforts is lack of adequate manpower in the forest department. A forest official said, “There are just 1,300 forest beat officers in the TS forest department and every one of them is responsible for protection of at least 8,000 acres of forest land. However, we are hopeful as the Budget for the forest department has increased from a meagre `13 crore for Telangana under united AP to `300 crore after bifurcation. Soon 2,000 new officers will be recruited.”

According to the Forest Report-2013 Khammam and Warangal have the highest percentage of encroachments of 17.15 sq. km and 10.94 sq. km respectively