Such lofty statements are inclined to put a gloss over the detrimental fallout of coverage choices which might be antithetical to conservation. Ironically, the very division Mr. Khandre heads has taken choices that jeopardises surroundings and ecology.
Be it the Sharavathi Pumped Storage challenge in Shivamogga or the micro-hydel tasks in Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary in Chamarajanagar, doing a U-turn on Goa-Tamnar energy challenge, or failure to clear forest encroachments, the State’s coverage is inconsistent with its avowed intention of forest safety. Activists understand a sample within the decision-making that prioritizes infrastructure over surroundings, which endangers ecological integrity.
Infra tasks galore
The Sharavathi Pumped Storage Project threatens to inundate giant tracts of evergreen forest in one of many few remaining biodiversity-rich landscapes within the Western Ghats.
The Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd (KPCL) is selling the two,000 MW pumped-storage hydroelectric facility. The challenge website is in an ecologically fragile and delicate space. The scheme requires 42.51 hectares (105.05 acres) of forest land and 60.53 hectares (149.57 acres) of non-forest land from the Sharavathi Valley Lion-Tailed Macaque Wildlife Sanctuary.
This is apart from the 11.64 hectares (28.76 acres) of forest land and 28.074 hectares (69.37 acres) of non-forest land proposed to be acquired from the sanctuary’s eco-sensitive buffer zone. The National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) has accorded ‘in-principle’ approval for the challenge for which the federal government of Karnataka and the State Board for Wildlife have given their consent.
The Sharavathi Valley is a part of the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot, and shelters quite a few endemic and endangered species. This consists of an estimated 700 lion-tailed macaques, that are among the many world’s rarest primates.
Though a number of members of NBWL made feeble makes an attempt to oppose the challenge and questioned its financial feasibility, such objections had been brushed apart.
As if to cut back the detrimental environmental impression, a number of ‘mitigation measures’ are being included within the challenge, and they’re merely beauty in nature, which fails to minimise ecological harm.
There is a individuals’s motion brewing towards the Sharavathi challenge. Activists beneath the banner of ‘Parisarakkaagi Naavu’, or People for Environment, met in Bengaluru on October 11 to specific their opposition to the challenge. They identified that not all tasks promoted beneath the banner of ’renewables’ are inherently sustainable or ecologically sound.
Opposing each the Sharavathi and Varahi Pumped Storage schemes, the residents resolved that not solely ought to they be scrapped, however future renewable vitality planning should respect ecological integrity of the positioning.
Mini-hydel tasks
Three mini-hydel tasks have been proposed inside the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary in Chamarajanagar district. If accepted, they’re certain to pose a risk to motion of wildlife, aside from disturbing the riverine ecosystem. While the federal government of Karnataka is but to clear them, questions are being raised as to why there isn’t any outright rejection of such proposals.
One is the renewal of diversion of 4.863 ha for the Ranganathaswamy Mini Hydel Project by Pioneer Power Corporation, a brand new diversion for the Bharachukki 2×2.5 MW Mini Hydel Project by Madhyaranga Energy Private Limited, and the re-diversion of a part of the identical land for a 24.5 MW challenge by Balaji Cauvery Power Private Limited.
While the extent of land diversion could seem small and insignificant when considered in isolation, such tasks collectively have a cascading detrimental impression. In the long term. They will undermine the ecological integrity of the encompassing panorama, in accordance with Giridhar Kulkarni, wildlife conservationist.
Six tiger deaths
The imperatives of opposing these proposals additionally stems from current tiger deaths — 5 in June 2025 and one other in October — all of that are a direct fallout of retaliatory killings linked to escalating human–wildlife battle within the MM Hills–Cauvery WLS panorama.
Such conflicts come up from habitat loss, disruption in prey–predator dynamics, and human encroachment, mentioned Kulkarni in a memorandum to the Forest Department.
’Mini hydel tasks’, regardless of their identify, trigger main ecological harm by means of tree-felling, impeding wildlife motion, creating habitat fragmentation, in accordance with activists who’ve urged the federal government to take a agency stance towards such proposals.
Incidentally, the Karnataka Elephant Task Force, which was constituted as per the orders of the High Court of Karnataka in 2012, in its report, famous that that key elephant habitats, together with protected areas such because the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary and BRT Tiger Reserve, are lined beneath numerous leases and different concessions on forest land.
The job pressure instructed a time-bound restoration of the land as elephant habitats after making a listing of such concessions and leases inside the designated forests, and provoke needed course of. Activists have argued that extending the present leases or issuing recent permission for tasks is just not the way in which ahead to revive elephant habitats.
Transmission line challenge
With respect to Goa–Tamnar 400 kV D/C Quad Transmission Line Project, the federal government has flip-flopped by itself resolution. The challenge proposes to hyperlink the present energy grid at Narendra in Dharwad district with Xeldem in Goa with a 94-kilometre transmission line.
About 72 kilometres of the proposed transmission line is to be laid throughout forests inside Karnataka. This features a 6.6-kilometre stretch by means of the Anshi–Dandeli Tiger Reserve, probably the most delicate wildlife habitats within the Western Ghats.
The challenge requires diversion of 177.091 hectares of forest land unfold throughout Dharwad, Belagavi, and Uttara Kannada districts, and felling of over 62,000 timber as per the federal government’s personal admission.
In March 2024, Mr. Khandre had cautioned officers towards inserting such tasks on the desk for approval.
But extra not too long ago, the Forest Department made U-turn on the unique resolution, and has requested the challenge proponents to switch the proposal with realignment of the road and different mitigatory measures.
Hubballi-Ankola line
The State Government’s ambivalence on the Hubballi-Ankola railway line and failure to take a agency resolution towards it’s also fraught with hazard, as giant tracts of pristine forests within the Western Ghats can be fragmented with cascading detrimental impression on the surroundings.
These, and lots of such tasks, wouldn’t solely intensify fragmentation however improve battle whereas undermining ecological stability of important forest areas.
According to authorities statistics, Karnataka has misplaced 48 human lives because of elephant assaults throughout 2023-24, whereas 29 lives had been misplaced in 2022-23. In 2021-22, there have been 27 human deaths, and between 2019-20 and 2023-24, 160 individuals died in elephant assaults. Between 2021 and 2024, 12 individuals died in tiger assaults.
Forest Department’s e-Parihara dashboard signifies that 35,580 conflicts through which claims had been raised, had been reported throughout 2024-25 and ₹21.61 crore granted by means of ex-gratia. Of the 35,580 battle incidents, 22,483 instances pertained to elephant assaults alone, adopted by 6,226 instances associated to wild boar, 3,738 instances associated to leopard assault, and 554 instances pertaining to tiger assault.
These battle incidents are a fallout of approving infrastructure tasks in ecologically sensitives areas, coupled with encroachment, which is shrinking forest cowl and escalating human-animal battle in villages abutting forest boundaries. And it’s the native and the marginalized communities that bear the brunt of such coverage contradictions, that are inimical to environmental conservation.
Encroachment instances
Adding to the battle and habitat disturbance is the forest encroachments. There is a backlog of such instances build up throughout Karnataka. The Forest Department’s annual report for 2024-25 signifies that there have been 44,812 encroachment instances pending throughout Karnataka as on March 31, 2025. This consists of 559 recent instances added throughout 2024-25, elevating concern over eroding forest cowl and habitat fragmentation.
Bengaluru division alone has 4,849 forest encroachment instances within the areas lined by Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Ramanagara, Kolar, Chikkaballapura district and the Bannerghatta National Park. But the variety of encroachments cleared throughout Karnataka was 243 instances throughout the 12 months.
High battle numbers in Bengaluru Circle
Given the extent of encroachment, the battle numbers are additionally excessive within the Bengaluru Circle. As many as 8,149 crop harm instances had been registered throughout 2024-25, aside from 1,123 instances of cattle kill, whereas throughout the State, 4,940 cattle kill instances had been registered because of wild animal assault.
The forest cowl in Karnataka spans an space of 40,678.23 sq.km, which is 21.21% of its geographical space of 1,91,791 sq. km. As per the annual report of the Forest Department of Karnataka, the share of forest space to geographical space was 22.64% in 2018-19.
Forest land diverted for infrastructure functions over time is chipping away the present inexperienced cowl.
Up to March 31, 2024, as many as 807 tasks had been cleared entailing switch of 32,422.55 hectares, or 80,116.5 acres, of forest land for non-forestry functions. This included 72 irrigation tasks, 148 mining and allied tasks, 83 highway works, 19 railway tasks, and 129 transmission line tasks, amongst others.
During 2024-25, a further 143 tasks had been cleared and 277.03 hectares, or almost 684.5 acres of forest land, had been diverted for non-forestry functions. This included three for mining and allied class, and two for transmission traces.
Community help
Conservation within the Indian context can be about balancing group wants with forest safety, which requires native help and engagement. But with growing human deaths and crop depredation, the area people help for conservation is vanishing, which bodes sick for wildlife safety.
Even as the federal government’s rhetoric of sustainability and conservation has grown in recent times, so has the ecological imbalance and stress on the bottom as evident within the official statistics.
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