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| SLICE OF LIFE | ||||
| Gir lions shift to greener pastures | ||||
| From a brown patch, the Girnar forest is now a showpiece green cover. The transformation has moved even the lions of neighbouring Gir—17 of them have made it their new den | ||||
| Janyala Sreenivas & S I Bukhari | ||||
 Girnar, Junagadh WHILE forests and sanctuaries all over the country are being encroached and habitats destroyed, here is a story of resurrection. A small bit of totally degraded forest has been transformed into prime forestland.
The 173 sq km Girnar forest in Junagadh district, 60 km from Gir Sanctuary, was on the edge of disappearance in 1987 due to illegal tree-felling and mining. Due to loss of habitat, a number of lions, leopards and prey base like spotted deer, and blue bull migrated. Finally, the Gujarat Forest Department woke up to the threat and started ‘Greening Girnar’, which is now being showcased as a model conservation project. The afforestation and eco-development work done in Girnar has now transformed the forest, green cover increasing from 31 per cent to 74 per cent by 2000. The effect: At least 17 lions and 50 leopards have made Girnar forest, at the foot of Girnar mountain, their new, permanent home after moving out from the Gir Sanctuary. Today, there is no illegal tree felling here, mining leases have been cancelled, pits have been converted into water conservation ponds and grazing discouraged. IN 2000, 14 years after ‘Greening Girnar’ was launched, the forest department started seeing signs of change. The dense forest cover, which had reduced to 5,684 hectares in 1986, increased to 12,931 hectares by 2000. Degraded forest area has been reduced from 4,414 hectares in 1986 to 1,634 hectares in 2000, while the highly degraded forest area has been reduced from 2,602 hectares in 1986 to just 284 hectares by 2000. Studies done by RESECO (Remote Sensing and Communication Centre) and Gujarat Ecology and Environment Research Foundation in Gandhinagar using satellite images reveal this marked difference. But it was the period 2000-2005 that brought good tidings for the forest department. From less than half a dozen lions straying in and out, the number of big cats which adopted the Girnar their new home increased to 17 in 2005. In fact, in the April 2005 census this area has been marked as a new sub-zone for counting lions. What brought about this transformation? ‘‘It was a do or die situation for the department. First, the illegal tree-felling had to be stopped. If it had, continued the green cover would have totally gone. Then the mining mafia had to be tackled,’’ says principal chief conservator of forests M.L. Sharma, who was conservator in Junagadh in 1988. ‘‘We were successful to quite an extent in preventing tree-felling, which encouraged the real conservation efforts,’’ says Sharma. As a first step, the department began by cancelling an old tradition under which local people of Junagadh city were permitted to collect dry wood from Girnar forest. The ‘Kathiyara system’, as it was known, was misused as people started chopping green trees resulting in fast deterioration of the forest. ‘‘There was a hue and cry at that time. The Kathiayaras became jobless and there was resentment towards forest department, often resulting in skirmishes with locals. But we held on and instead increased patrolling,’’ says former DFO P.P. Raval, now posted in Sasan Gir. THE real turnaround came in late 1988, after the death of former Junagadh MLA Bharat Kambaliya, who owned a saw mill in Junagadh and who, it is alleged, headed a major tree-felling racket. Second, more than two dozen mines operating inside Girnar forests were shut down as the district collector refused to renew leases and fresh applications were rejected. A joint team of forest, police and revenue officials was formed to raid saw-mills receiving wood cut from the Girnar jungles. ‘‘The joint team kept up the pressure until several saw mills closed down. Illicit tree-felling was no longer lucurative and, in fact, become dangerous,’’ says DFO R.D. Katara, now superintendent of the Sakkarbaug Zoo in Junagadh. As the forest department intensified protection and conservation efforts, human disturbance and noise pollution was drastically reduced in the Girnar. ‘‘While ungulates and other small animals made a comeback in Girnar, the first sighting of lion roaming free there was made only 1990,’’ says Raval. According to forest officials, for the next five years, lions, including a couple of prides, would wander in either from the Mangrol coastal belt or the Gir Sanctuary, roam the jungle for a few days and make their way back. Not until 2000 would lions begin to make the Girnar forest their new home. In the meanwhile, the forest department found the abandoned mines worked to their advantage. ‘‘The huge mine pits serve a great purpose to us. Every monsoon crores of gallons of rain water accumulates there and helps us in water conservation. We have also created water channels so that rain water is directed into these pits,’’ says S.B. Baleja, deputy forest officer, Junagadh. The department also took up soil and moisture conservation programmes and 263 small and big check dams were built in the area. And then the lions came back. To live. | ||||
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