Hydel project to choke Dooars!

Hydel project shadow on Dooars; Sankosh-Teesta Canal May Wreak Havoc On Forests

The Union government is reportedly planning a mega hydroelectric project on the Sankosh river in Bhutan that experts feel may lead to massive loss of greenery and wreak havoc on the biodiversity of the Dooars.

The mammoth Sankosh Multipurpose Project (SMP) is the biggest such project in Bhutan and when complete, will generate 4,060 MW of electricity. According to the detailed project report prepared by the Central Water Commission (CWC) of India, the project will comprise two dams to feed a 141 km canal, 128 km of which would be inside India. It would cut through Buxa Tiger Reserve, Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary and several other small forest tracts. The canal would connect the Sankosh in the east with the Teesta in the West.

The power generated would feed the entire northeast and reach as far as Meerut in UP. The canal would also irrigate fields and supply drinking water to parts of Bengal.

But environment experts feel that the project would take a heavy toll on the jungles of Dooars. Excavating the canal would destroy at least 450 sq km of forest land, of which over 100 sq km would be within core areas. The region has some of India’s most biodiverse forests: Jaldapara is one of India’s last reserves of the onehorned rhino, while Buxa is the only habitat of tigers in Bengal apart from Sunderbans.

“BTR houses Bengal tigers and nothing can be allowed to affect their natural habitat. The project will have a major impact on the ecosystem of the forest and the canal that they are planning will prove catastrophic for the wildlife here,” said R P Saini, the field director of BTR.

“This will have a direct impact on the elephant corridor as well. The railway tracks connecting Alipurduar to NJP have already affected the corridor from Sankosh to Teesta. Ifthe canal is dug, elephants will be bound to use the railway track to travel and it will further increase the possibility of elephant deaths,” said Raja Raut, honorary Wild Life Warden, who is also the secretary of Jalpaiguri Science and Nature Club.

Though the DPR by CWC was first handed over to the Bhutan government in December 1997, it did not get cleared due to protests. Now, the Union government wants to revive it after receiving a request from Bhutan. The agency that has been allotted the project is supposed to submit a revised DPR within this year.

“Once the dams are built, water supply to the Sankosh and the other streams will be drastically reduced. The downstream of Sankosh, which is one of the lifelines of BTR, will be greatly affected,” admitted a CWC official. He added that the work for the revised DPR had been completed in Bhutan but the work for the Indian portion was yet to start. CWC chief engineer K K Saha said, “We know the project had been planned a few years back, but there’s no news yet of it being revived.”

According to Animesh Basu, the co-coordinator of Himalayan Nature and Adventure Foundation, joining Sankosh with Teesta was an absurd idea. “The focus across the country is on saving tigers. If this project is implemented, it will finish off the possibility of reviving BTR as a tiger habitat,” he said.

State forest minister Ananta Roy said, “We will not allow any project that may harm the fragile biodiversity of Dooars. If the project is implemented in Bhutan, we’ll have nothing to say. But we’ll not let anyone destroy Bengal’s forests.”

WATER WAR BREWING?
Sankosh Multipurpose Project will comprise two dams to feed a 141 km canal, 128 km of which would be inside India. It will generate 4,060 MW of electricity and would feed the northeast and reach as far as Meerut in UP. The canal would connect the Sankosh in the east with the Teesta in the west and also irrigate fields and supply drinking water to parts of Bengal.

It would cut through Buxa Tiger Reserve, Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary and several other small forest tracts.

Excavating the canal would destroy at least 450 sq km of forest land, of which over 100 sq km would be within core areas, say experts. It may have a severe impact on the elephant corridor.

_by TOI

Pinak Priya Bhattacharya | TNN

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Radio-collared Sundarban Tiger moves into Bangladesh

A radio-collared Tiger in the Sundarbans has reportedly crossed over into Bangladesh, forest officials have found. A radio collar worth around Rs 6-7 lakh was placed around the neck of the Tiger on May 21.

“This once again confirms that wild animals do not understand political boundaries and often move across the international border,” said Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (SBR) director Pradip Vyas. Significantly, 60% of the Sundarbans falls in Bangladesh while 40% is in India.

Sources said this is one of the reasons why Union Environment and Forests minister Jairam Ramesh has taken up the India-Bangladesh joint initiative on the Sundarbans. Tiger conservation has to be done jointly, said senior forest officials. Interestingly, the forest officials are still receiving signals from the collar and have located it somewhere in the middle of Talpatty island in Bangladesh.

The Tiger had entered into Malmelia village in North 24-Parganas and was eventually trapped in the Arbeshi jungle on May 21. It was tranquillized and radio-collared before being released in the Katuajhuri forest of the Sundarbans. The radio collar signals revealed that on the first two days, it traveled only 6-7 km. But on the third day, the Tiger traveled more than double that distance.

The signals show that a Tiger crosses its command area and moves into new territory at will, even if there is enough prey. The forest department found that there was enough prey in the Katuajhuri jungle and forest guards, who examined the terrain, found carcasses of animals devoured by the Tiger. “So, we were a bit surprised when the Tiger suddenly started moving from south to east, towards Bangladesh. This hints that a Tiger can enter due to reasons other than the lack of prey base,” an official reports.

The Tiger started closing in on Talpatty. Finally, two days ago, it moved into the Bangladesh Sundarbans.

The officials are keeping a close watch on the movements of the Tiger with the help of signals from the collar. In recent times, a Tiger and a Tigress, which had entered into Shamsernagar, were also found to have entered Indian territory from Bangladesh.

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Sanctuary Asia & Bengal Tiger Line has been jointly implementing a Bengal Tiger Bachaao campaign in West Bengal. To win over local communities, together with the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, we are organizing a daylong football tournament -BAGH'er jonno KHELUN! at Debipur village, in the Gurguria / Kultoli area (also near Deulbari) on Sunday June 13, 2010.

This particular venue has significance, as it is adjacent to the embankment forest area where a Tigress had entered in January this year and had kept itself confined in the mangrove patch for almost 7 days before the foresters were able to rescue the animal with support from the locals.

To the best of our knowledge, something like this is being done for the very first time with the Tiger as the pivot. The tournament is sure to get great support with the World Cup fever that will soon take the nation by storm. The fact that 2010 has been declared as the International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations makes it all the more important for us to motivate young people to work together to protect the incredible biodiversity of the Sundarbans.

The prime objective is to create a platform through which the South 24 Parganas Forest Division under the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve can build a strong and effective support base for Tiger conservation and this is an attempt to help them achieve this goal.

Today a press meet was held at Kolkata's Outram Club this afterneen to announce the event & unveil the set of 8 team jerseys.

Actor Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, former national footballer Goutam Sarkar, Bengal's 1st Mt.Everest climber-duo Basanta Singha Roy & Debasish Biswas were there to unveil the jerseys.

Elephant run over by train at North Bengal

Death of animals, particularly Elephants have now become a common thing in North Bengal. Many requests made to authorities have failed miserably to change things in a positive & humane direction.

Report of a latest incident :

Two days after a female elephant died after being hit by a speeding train at Banerhat in the Dooars region of Jalpaiguri district, a sub-adult female elephant was run over by a special train carrying BSF jawans from J&K to Guwahati in the early hours 2.10 am of Thursday.

The accident occurred on the NJP-Alipurduar route between Kalchini and Garopara near Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR). The elephant was dragged around 70 m after being hit by the train.

"Even though elephants generally move after sunset, the railways has increased train traffic on this track during that period. There is another route running parallel to this one. It passes through Falakata and Jalpaiguri. The railways should lay more lines on that route and immediately shift trains there so as to avoid such accidents," said R P Saini, field director, BTR.

The forest department has lodged an FIR against the railways at Kalchini police station. When the railways had decided to convert the tracks from Siliguri to Alipurduar through the forests of Dooars, WWF had filed a case in the Calcutta high court. The court had given permission for gauge conversion on the condition that the railways followed certain norms to ensure that no harm was caused to animals. Animal lovers, however, allege that the directives are hardly followed in the region.