180 sq km forest lost to coal mining, encroachments in Satpuda-Pench corridor

Nagpur: Even as government is going ahead with its auction of coal blocks, latest study on land use land cover (LULC) change in the wildlife corridor connecting the Pench and Satpuda tiger reserves reveals a systematic loss of 180 sq km forest including 10,377ha (103 sq km) dense and 7,406ha (74 sq km) open forests to coal mining and encroachments.
The lost area is equivalent to the size of Umred-Karhandla-Paoni wildlife sanctuary.The study analysed data for 17-year period between April 2002-2019 using GIS and remote sensing techniques. As per the study, a net area of 2,055 sq km of forests was diverted for agriculture indicating extensive encroachment of forest land. Water bodies have reduced by 26% indicating shrinkage in water bodies in the period under study.
The study ‘Land use change and wildlife conservation — case analysis of Pench-Satpuda wildlife corridor’ — was conducted by Sujoy Banerjee, an IFS officer, Tuomo Kauranne, Finland, and Mirja Mikkila, department of sustainability sciences, LUT-University, Finland. It has been recently published in a reputable international journal.
“Tiger reserves of Central India have been islanded by human habitation and are interconnected by narrow ‘wildlife corridors’ for migration of wildlife,” says the study whose lead author is Banerjee, who as a DFO earlier in the MoEF’s regional office here had also insisted on mitigation steps on NH6 and NH7 passing through Pench.
Pench-Satpuda wildlife corridor is one of critical wildlife corridors. LULC is crucial for proper land use planning, which eventually impacts biological diversity. Banerjee’s study is the first to analyse the LULC changes and land use planning in this corridor.
Camera trapping undertaken by Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) in the area established presence of tigers and is a viable wildlife corridor regularly used by wildlife to migrate between Pench and Satpuda. Data from forest department reveal substantial man-wildlife conflict in the study area, further confirming regular presence of wildlife.
The 2,133 sq km Satpuda Tiger Reserve (STR) forms a vital link for spillover/migrating populations of the 2,769 sq km Melghat Tiger Reserve (MTR) located in the south-west and the 1,180 sq km Pench in the south-east, which eventually connect to the 2,052 sq km Kanha reserve.
The study area falls in Chhindwara district and at present, there are 17 coal mines operational in it including six open cast, nine underground, and two mixed. The production of open cast mines is four times that of underground mines.
The length of the corridor is roughly 90km and average width is about 22km. It encompasses forest lands, private lands, agriculture, villages, roads, railways etc. This corridor linkage is extremely precarious with forests intermittently disrupted by agriculture and habitation.
Banerjee said, “The Pench-Kanha wildlife corridor overlays a wide-ranging coal belt with promising deposits. Active mines exist both to the east and west of the corridor. The negative environmental impacts of mining, especially open cast mining, are tremendous and will result in total degradation of the corridor and loss of connectivity in case the area is opened to coal mining.”
The corridor is vital for population of over 700 tigers and its viability is critical to long-term migration of wildlife in the landscape.
The study found large-scale degradation of the forests, shrinkage of water bodies, and an increase in the area under agriculture due to illegal encroachment over forest lands by local communities which might eventually lead to a total disruption of the corridor, in the case preventive measures are not taken in time.