Karnataka has over 44,800 pending forest encroachment cases; wildlife corridors at risk

Karnataka has a backlog of 44,812 forest encroachment cases as on March 31, 2025, out of which 559 fresh cases were registered during 2024-25, raising concern over eroding forest cover and habitat fragmentation.

The Karnataka Forest Department’s annual report for 2024-25 also points out that out of the 44,812 pending cases, the number of encroachments cleared during the year was only 243, which underscores the low pace of enforcement and the formidable challenges in reclaiming forestland, despite mounting ecological pressures.

Conservationists say that at this rate, it would take decades to clear the existing backlog, by which time much of the degraded forest could be irreversibly lost. There are concerns that the backlog of encroachment cases that are yet to be resolved and the number of fresh cases registered every year are an indication of dereliction of duty at the field level and lack of political support for eviction.

The encroachments are spread across the State’s reserve forests in all the forest circles and divisions, and activists have warned that continued occupation of forestland constricts wildlife movement, adding to human-wildlife conflict.

What is disconcerting is that some of the notified tiger reserves and wildlife sanctuaries, too, have encroachment cases pending since decades, of which there are 204 cases in Bandipur division, 16 in Nagarahole, 636 in Bannerghatta division, 107 in M.M. Hills, 833 in Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, 43 in Bhadra Tiger Division,  709 in Kali Tiger Reserve division in Dandeli, among others.

Out of the 559 fresh cases registered during 2024-25, as many as 38 cases were registered in the Shivamooga division, 53 in Bhadravati division, 69 in Sagara, and 24 in Shivamogga wildlife division, while 7 fresh encroachment cases were registered in the Bidar division, which is the home turf of Forest Minister Eshwar B. Khandre. Kanara circle has reported 69 new cases, while Belagavi (49), Chikkamagalur (41), and Kalaburgi (80) are other circles with high number of fresh encroachments.

The pending encroachment cases, especially near wildlife zones like the Bandipur-Nagarahole-M.M. Hills landscape, has raised an alarm as these are sensitive areas where cases of human-animal conflict were also high.

At a time when wildlife population is showing trends of an increase, failure to remove the encroachments will erode and shrink wildlife habitat and corridor, forcing animals to stray into villages abutting the forest boundaries, thereby escalating conflict situations. Incidentally, loss of human life due to conflict is also high in such regions, as in Mysuru, Kodagu, Hassan, Chamarajanagar, etc.

As per a communique by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, State and district-level monitoring committees should review the situation biannually and clear the evictions. The communique states that apart from monitoring forest encroachments, it should also fix responsibility on officials, including those from the Revenue Department, for their failure to prevent or evict encroachments. But given the scale of encroachments, activists wonder whether the monitoring committees have become defunct.