First in TN, 50.79 ha made private forest to secure Kallar elephant corridor
In a crucial attempt to protect the Kallar elephant corridor, the Coimbatore district administration has made 50.79 hectares of land along the elephant passageway as private forests under Tamil Nadu Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1949.
“Significantly, this is the first corridor in Tamil Nadu to be brought under the Act. The process got over in a short span of one month due to efforts of District Collector S Nagarajan. Any development works taken up in the corridor will be stopped,” said D Venkatesh, District Forest Officer of Coimbatore forest division.
With new rules setting into motion, stringent restrictions will henceforth govern the sale of land and also for either conversion in land pattern or to carry out development works in this land.
In the forest area, the elephants migrate traditionally on a fixed pathway. When their migratory
pathway gets blocked under the garb of development, the elephants stray away resulting in conflicts in new areas. Therefore, it has been a long time demand from conservationists to prevent development works on the key Kallar corridor towards conservation of elephants.
The corridor facilitates movement of elephants between Coimbatore, The Nilgiris and Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (STR).
“Securing this key corridor of The Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve (NBR) will go a long way in overall conservation of elephants. This will be a first step towards that direction. Nevertheless, the movement of wildlife has currently been blocked by a National Highways running through the corridor and it has been a long pending project to build a flyover for vehicles to go through without disturbing the wild. Even shrinking of the elephant habitat may escalate conflicts,” said D Boominathan, Landscape coordinator, WWF.