Kishor Rithe

The problem of Pench,October 2001

VOL. XXI. NO. 5. October 2001

 

The problem of Pench

by Kishor Rithe and Ashish Fernandes

 

“That looks like a croc’s burrow!” Not quite the words you want to hear when you’re enjoying a dip in a river. Half-expecting a prank, we turned and saw what did indeed look like, and must have been, a croc burrow. Not a very big croc perhaps, but a croc nonetheless. Of course, no croc will attack a human without provocation, so we kept our distance and continued to soak in the atmosphere of the magnificent forests of Pench, surely some of the finest in Central India.

 

Together with Noel de Sa, Bittu Sahgal and local RFO Kishor Mishrikotkar, we had been trekking upriver for about an hour. The landscape was awesome; sun-bleached, water-crafted boulders, small and large (some of them well over five metres tall), made progress slow, and a sprained ankle an ever-present threat. Even though it was August, the rain gods had not been kind, and the river was not in full flow, though we did come across several deep pools. It was afternoon, and the sweat was pouring off us in an almost therapeutic fashion, which was why the idea of a dip in one of the many blue-green pools was so tempting.

 

As we let the sun dry us off and continued our climb, one question kept coming back again and again. Why? Why should anyone have to fight to protect a paradise like this? Savouring its peace and vibrancy, listening to the relentless call of the brain-fever bird, the gurgle of a forest stream or the splash as some lucky kingfisher caught its breakfast should be the only things one has to think about, not fretting over some crazy scheme being hatched in far-off cities to convert these pleasures to cold cash.

 

“Politics has been Pench’s worst enemy,” said a Madhya Pradesh forest officer who was accompanying us. “The damage done by the construction of the Totladoh dam was bad enough, but if that had been all, things would still be OK. It’s the illegal fishing that’s killing Pench today. And because of the Madhya Pradesh government’s shortsightedness, the Maharashtra side of Pench also suffers. Tigers don’t know or respect state boundaries and neither does the fishing mafia that threatens them.”

 

The Pench Tiger Reserve is spread over two states, the Seoni and Chindwara districts of Madhya Pradesh and the Nagpur district of Maharashtra. Pench MP covers an area of around 757 sq. km., while the contiguous area in Maharashtra covers 257 sq. km. Pench is an important link between tiger habitats to the west and south (Melghat) and to the east (Kanha and Nagzira). In the heart of the tiger reserve is the reservoir created by the Totladoh Hydroelectric Project.

 

The night before, we had driven from the Totladoh resthouse down to the reservoir. As we stood on the embankment overlooking the reservoir, enjoying the cool, quiet night air, dozens of tiny pin-pricks of light flashed on the surface of the reservoir. Innocuous and peaceful as they might look, each one of those lights signified the presence of illegal fishermen.

 

“Not only are the fishermen causing severe disturbance to the park, it is also impossible to monitor their activities round the clock, and we believe that the cases of poaching being carried out by ‘fishermen’ is just the tip of the iceberg,” we were told.

 

Unfortunately, the tragedy of Pench is being repeated elsewhere. The ridiculous argument that a reservoir on the boundary of a protected area would serve to reduce human interference is being used to push through other dam projects such as Upper Tapi in Melghat and the Human dam project near Tadoba-Andhari.

 

Later that evening, we drove through thick forests along the MP-Maharashtra border to emerge on the dry, barren lake bed, startling a large wild boar, herds of chital and a few nilgai en route. We stopped to watch a Streaked Fantail Warbler, which seemed to be trying to distract us from its nest. We were struck by how thick the drowned forests must have been, how many tigers and varied other life forms they must have sustained. A total of 67 sq. km. of forest was lost under the Totladoh reservoir, which an easily pressured MoEF bureaucrat once certified was a ‘small pond’.

 

The next morning, we set off on to the Totladoh reservoir in two of the forest department’s boats. The stark contrast between the thick forests above submergence level and the bare, exposed shore below it bore mute testimony to the destruction caused when the virgin forest was submerged.

 

It was market day, and so the shores of the reservoir were devoid of fishermen. On most days, camps would dot the shore with several hundred people spread out along the reservoir’s periphery, all engaged in the illegal fishing business. What we were about to do would have been impossible on a normal day.

 

Well away from the dam wall and into the middle of the lake, our boat stopped and one of the guards pulled a plastic sphere out of the water… a float, attached to a net. That was the start of a long morning, crisscrossing the lake, pulling up all the nets we could find. Several hours and by our estimate almost 10 km. of nets later, we headed for the forest department’s base camp on the shore of the lake, where MP meets Maharashtra. Here, in the heart of the tiger’s territory, all signs of forest life had been destroyed by the thousands of fisherfolk from MP who moved in and out of the forest at will.

 

That night, sitting in the verandah of the Totladoh resthouse, we talked of how politics was destroying Pench. In 1968, Maharashtra and MP had signed an agreement to build an interstate hydroelectric project at Totladoh in Maharashtra. According to the initial report of the Irrigation Department, the project would require a total of 8,219 ha. of forest land, 5,202 ha. from MP and 2,556 ha.  from Maharashtra. Seven villages were submerged with the project, all but one from MP. These villagers were ‘resettled’ in adjoining villages and compensated.

 

The area in question was at that time dense, virgin dry deciduous reserve forest. The construction of the dam put paid to all that, as the area was badly logged and a colony was established on 35 ha. of forest land at Totladoh for the workers and staff of the Irrigation Department. This land was supposed to be handed over to the forest department after the dam was completed, but today, nine years after the project was completed, this has still to be done.

 

In 1975, the Maharashtra government issued the first notification of the 257.26 sq. km. Pench National Park. In 1986, when the water impoundment began in the reservoir, the MP Fisheries Department started developing it as a commercial fishing ground, introducing exotic species that displaced native ones, which were already struggling to adapt to the sudden conversion of their riverine habitat into a stagnant impoundage. Needless to say, the Fisheries Department neither informed nor sought the consent of either the MP or Maharashtra Forest Departments.

The Madhya Pradesh Fisheries Development Corporation (MPFDC) brought in fishermen from other areas in 1988 and the disturbance to Pench increased manifold. The MP Forest Department had still not given its sanction to fishing in the reservoir. In 1989, the Wildlife Wing of the Maharashtra Forest Department finally took over management of the Pench National Park. Thanks to some dedicated officers, it initiated measures to stop illegal fishing in the Maharashtra portion of the reservoir. The pressure finally paid off in 1995 when the MPFDC stopped fishing in the Maharashtra section of the reservoir. However, numerous other ‘independent’ operators seem to continue fishing with impunity, and this has caused the situation on the ground to steadily deteriorate since then. Numerous boats, cycles and nets have been seized and cases lodged in this battle of attrition that neither side can win. Many forest guards have been injured in clashes with fishermen, who sometimes even use dynamite to try and blow the forest department boats out of the water. We needed no convincing of the seriousness of the situation when we saw the protective helmets that were a part of each boat’s gear.

 

And this is when politics comes into the picture. On May 30, 1996, the Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF), MP, a man whose mandate is to protect the forests in his charge, instructed the Director of the Pench National Park (MP) to allow 305 members of 84 families to fish in the MP portion of the Totladoh reservoir. These families were supposed to be those originally displaced by the dam. Of course, strict conditions applied. Fishing was only allowed between 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. and not between July and October (the breeding season). Photo identity cards were to be issued. Entry to Totladoh was to be only from Thuipani in MP. The  conditions were never monitored or fulfilled.

 

In 1997, the Supreme Court partially upheld the politically-motivated instruction issued by the CCF Bhopal and stipulated still more stringent conditions. The court also directed that the final notification of the MP area of Pench be expedited under section 35 (4) of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Forest officers in MP who resisted the political pressure (from former Minister of Environment Kamal Nath, in whose Chindwara constituency Pench MP falls) were summarily transferred to non-wildlife postings and forest guards down the line were given to understand that the fishing was not to be interfered with. The total turnover from fishing in the Pench reservoir runs into several crores a year, and a handful of individuals in Nagpur control the entire trade.

 

We left Pench with our minds in a whirl. Such beauty, so many problems, how do we give the forest a chance to survive? Barely a few days later, there was more bad news. The MP government is now openly advocating the denotification of Pench so as to exclude the reservoir from the park. The Supreme Court had ordered the acquisition of fishing rights in the reservoir by paying compensation. This would make it impossible for the fishing mafia to operate and the MP government’s obvious reluctance to displease these powerful individuals has led to the denotifcation attempt. Besides Pench, eight other national parks and 25 sanctuaries are also on the government’s denotification hit list.

 

Will Pench be given the chance to recover? Would courageous forest officers be allowed to perform their duties without interference? So many questions… but the answers, it would appear, would have to be sought from the Supreme Court.

 

Box

 

Protecting paradise

 

Pench is a beautiful forest, desperately trying to heal itself from wounds inflicted on it by politicians, short-sighted businessmen and a few misguided social activists. For the forest to be restored to the tiger and the diversity of life that co-exists with this apex predator, we must only take a few simple steps forward:

 

1) The Totladoh settlement in Pench Maharashtra must be vacated and handed back to the forest department as was done in the case of the Kalagarh dam in Corbett.

2) The final notification of the Pench MP, which has been pending for many years now, must be issued as per the instructions of the Supreme Court.

3) Those fishing rights that have been granted by the court must be acquired by paying compensation. All fishing in the reservoir must be stopped.

Contempt notices should be issued against the MP government for wilfully flouting the orders of the SC and allowing thousands of fisherfolk to enter the tiger reserve.

 

Readers who wish to lend support to the protection of Pench should write to:

Mr. Digvijay Singh, Chief Minister of MP, Vallabh Bhavan, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Fax: +91 755 661 501/ 540 501. E-mail: chiefminister@madhyapradesh-india.org

Send a copy to Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, 10, Janpath, New Delhi 110 011. Fax: +91 011 301 8651

 

Caption

 

1. The official border between MP and Maharashtra was clear-felled decades ago. Inexplicably, the wide belt continues to be managed to prevent regeneration!

2. The thick forests of Pench (facing page) are a vital ecological link between the tiger habitats of Melghat, Nagzira and Kanha. Protecting this Satpura belt is crucial to the survival of Panthera tigris.

3. The Pench river flows through boulder-strewn ravines, surrounded by dense riverine forests that harbour an array of wild creatures, many yet to be documented by science.

4. The construction of the Totladoh dam submerged over 67 sq. km. of tiger forest. The disturbance caused by the dam continues today, with a politically-backed fishing mafia running riot in the heart of the tiger reserve.

5. Maharashtra Forest Department personnel pulling fishing nets out of the Totladoh reservoir, where they have been illegally set by fishermen from Madhya Pradesh. Inter-state coordination and policies are hopelessly mismatched.

6. If sights like this herd of chital are to be seen more frequently, it is imperative that the Supreme Court’s directives concerning Pench are followed by the Madhya Pradesh government.

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