Exclusive: Mere presence of a few transient tigers no reason to declare reserve, Goa govt tells SC panel

In July 2023, the High Court of Bombay at Goa directed the Goa government to notify a tiger reserve in Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and other contiguous areas within three months. The High Court also directed the state to determine and settle the rights and claims of Scheduled Tribes and other forest dwellers within a year. Subsequently, the Goa government filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court challenging the High Court’s order. The Supreme Court ordered a status quo in the Mhadei-Cotigao area and referred the matter to a CEC last month and sought a report within six weeks.

The Mhadei-Cotigao forest complex comprises five protected areas — Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary, Bhagwan Mahavir National Park (Mollem), Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary and Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary — covering an area of over 750 square kilometres and forming a contiguous belt connecting the forests of Karnataka and Maharashtra. Two members of the CEC visited Goa last week and held meetings with government officials and all stakeholders.

In the affidavit, the Goa government refuted submissions made by The Goa Foundation – an environmental NGO and respondent in the matter – regarding the presence of tigers, claiming that the respondent’s reliance on the “Status of Tigers: Co-Predators and Prey in India 2022” report, which records presence of five tigers in Goa, is “misplaced.”

Citing observations from the report compiled by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and Wildlife Institute of India (WII), the Goa government observed that the absence of a tigress or cubs “clearly indicates a lack of breeding activity in the said protected areas, suggesting the absence of an established/permanent, self-sustaining resident tiger population in the area.”

The government said there is no evidence that the two tigers spotted in Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and Mollem National Park were distinct individuals or the same tigers moving across adjoining areas. “The report is silent on this aspect. In fact, the presence of tigers in the area is also noted based on scat DNA evidence, which in itself is not conclusive evidence of the presence of resident tigers in the area. There is also no definitive evidence on record to ascertain whether the individual tigers observed in Mhadei and Mollem are resident tigers or transient visitors from adjoining protected areas of Karnataka,” it submitted.

The state government said in the absence of “concrete evidence” confirming the presence of resident tiger populations, it is “reasonable to infer that these regions function primarily as areas linking tiger reserves rather than core habitats for tigers.”

The government said the protected area in Goa is only a corridor whereby the tigers transit from Maharashtra to Karnataka or vice versa. “It is a corridor for all purposes. The area just acts as a corridor between the Kali Tiger Reserve of Karnataka and the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve of Maharashtra,” it said.

The government submitted that declaration of a tiger reserve in Goa would not just involve settling the claims of local communities but would also impose stringent restrictions potentially resulting in village relocations, criminalisation of traditional forest practices and disruption of customary resource access rights. The government said it has already received more than 10,000 claims under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act and is in the process of collating and verifying them. In an earlier affidavit, the government had said the protected area proposed to be declared a tiger reserve has a population of 1 lakh inhabitants and displacing them would be extremely difficult.

The state argued that a forced rehabilitation could lead to conflict between the forest department and the local inhabitants. “…displacing people would also entail rehabilitating them in suitable locations, which would be extremely difficult in a small state like Goa. Additionally, a forced rehabilitation of the local inhabitants from their original habitat may also lead to resentment towards the presence of tigers, thereby increasing the probability of a man-animal conflict in the region,” it added.

In response to the government’s submissions, the Goa Foundation said it has relied upon the expertise of the NTCA regarding the presence of tigers in the state. “It is assumed that if the NTCA has issued the necessary recommendations for a tiger reserve, which are obviously based on its knowledge of the matter. The NTCA is the body set up by Parliament to decide such issues on the basis of scientific authority,” it said.

Regarding the concerns of the human population that may stand to be affected if a tiger reserve is notified, the Goa Foundation said the state government had earlier stated in the hearing that over 1 lakh persons would be affected. Citing the annexure of the affidavit filed by the government, the NGO said the state appears to have changed its position, saying, “it [government] now concedes that the total number of households in all protected areas proposed for the tiger reserve would be 1274, which, if one assumes generously a family of five persons in each unit, would amount to not more than 5000 to 6000 persons in 33 villages/hamlets.”

In the affidavit, the government argued that for a viable tiger population to thrive, an “inviolate space of 800-1200 square kilometres is imperative to be carved out.” “The current protected area in the state of Goa already covers an area of 745 square kilometres, representing almost 20-25 percent of the total area of the state. Carving out any further area is not feasible and/or practicable, and would have to also be considered based on policy and administrative evaluations (ecological science, land rights, rehabilitation, coexistence measures etc.),” it said.

In January 2020, a tigress and its three cubs were found dead in Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, with a subsequent investigation finding that forest dwellers had poisoned the tigers as revenge for killing their cattle. An NTCA expert team constituted to inquire into the deaths recommended declaring the area a tiger reserve, saying that without doing so, “The state may become a death trap for tigers dispersing in this landscape.” In the affidavit, the government said the protected area has not witnessed a single such incident, whether before or after that period. “Thus, the tiger killings have been only a stray incident, and not something which would lead to making of death trap for tigers in the region,” it said.