‘Aravalli hills can support rich biodiversity, wildlife’
NEW DELHI: A new study has found that the Aravalli hills in Gurugram, Faridabad and Delhi can support rich biodiversity and wildlife if protected from further habitat fragmentation. The study found a total of 1,327 signs of 13 mammal species during two seasons — winter and summer — of the survey conducted in 2019.
Two species of large carnivores — leopard and striped hyena — as well as four species of herbivores, two primate species and seven species of mesocarnivores (fox, civets, mongoose etc) — were found by the survey.
Sunil Harsana, a resident of Mangar village in Faridabad who has informally surveyed the Aravalli stretches in the region for years, and has recently taken up formal research to document biodiversity in the region, conducted the study under the Worldwide Fund for Nature’s small grants programme. The study was supported by the nonprofit Centre for Ecology Development and Research (CEDAR).
The findings of the study, a summary of which HT has seen, are significant because the region is threatened by massive infrastructure-led land use change and real estate projects. Haryana, where Gurugram and Faridabad are located, is among states with the lowest forest cover (3.62%) and yet rich wildlife areas in the region do not have legal protection.
“Part of the Aravallis on the Haryana side are notified under section 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act, and treated as legal forest as per Supreme Court orders ... The remaining portion, which includes the Mangar Bani sacred grove, are awaiting formal recognition as forest as per the dictionary meaning,” said Chetan Agarwal, an environment analyst and senior fellow at CEDAR. “Haryana needs a protected area under the Wild Life (Protection) Act adjacent to the Asola Wildlife Sanctuary so that the contiguous stretch can be protected.”
“This study is significant because it proves there is a critical wildlife area in the middle of a deeply urbanised region, said Ghazala Shahabuddin, senior fellow at CEDAR. We have had camera-trapped images of leopards from 2017, of striped hyenas and mongoose more recently all in the Gurugram Aravallis,” Shahabuddin added.
Surprisingly, the Aravallis in both Faridabad and Gurugram were found to harbour a larger variety of mammals compared to the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary on Delhi-haryana border, which is classified as a protected area and enjoys protection under Wild Life (Protection) Act.
The largest number of species was recorded in the Faridabad Aravallis (14), followed by the Gurugram Aravalis (11), Mangar Bani (10) and least in Asola Bhatti (9). Mangar Bani and the Gurugram Aravallis threw up a 30% higher encounter rates with animal signs per kilometre n comparison to Asola Bhatti and the Faridabad Aravallis.
Two species —the leopard and the honey badger— are classified as endangered under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act while three of the meso-carnivore species found in the region are thought to be declining in the northern Aravallis, and in other parts of India. These are the golden jackal, jungle cat and ruddy mongoose.
The Aravallis in Gurugram and Faridabad, along with the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary in southeastern Delhi, form a contiguous block of forest habitat. A survey by Wildlife Institute of India in the Haryana Aravallis, in 2017 had also shown significant presence of wildlife, including leopards, in the region.
The findings of the present study underlines that this is the largest contiguous remnant of native dry deciduous forest and thorn scrub in the Delhi-haryana National Capital Region.