Activists warning Karnataka govt. in opposition to selling temple jatra in Bandipur core space

The horrific accidents suffered by a farmer because of a tiger assault in Sargur close to H.D. Kote ought to function a wake-up name for political leaders and the district administration in opposition to additional including to the anthropogenic stress on forests, which is able to solely improve human-animal battle within the area.

There have been a spate of such assaults involving elephants, tigers, and leopards, and most of those are policy-driven conflicts abetted by skewed priorities of the political management, leading to habitat disturbance and fragmentation.

The subject assumes significance as that is the season of a significant ‘jatra’ or temple honest within the core Bandipur Tiger Teserve — at Beladakuppe in Hediyala vary. What was a small shrine earlier has through the years grown right into a full-fledged temple advanced, and is now underneath the State authorities’s Department of Muzurai.

The ‘jatra mahotsav’ of Beladakuppe Mahadeshwara Swamy temple attracts devotees not in hundreds however in tens of hundreds, and plenty of trek and stroll by the core forest space courting hazard. This 12 months’s ‘jatra’ is scheduled throughout November, for which preparations are afoot.

Though the Forest Department claims to limit the variety of devotees visiting the shrine, which is now a full-fledged temple, the devotees barge by the safety gate as solely a handful of Forest Department personnel and police are deployed on web site, who’re unable to regulate them.

What is meaningless is that the temple, which is within the core tiger reserve space, has been included within the district tourism growth plan. It is likely one of the 13 temples which will likely be promoted by the federal government, although solely the Beladakuppe Mahadeshwara Swamy temple is contained in the forest. When the plan was drafted and introduced in August this 12 months, Anil Chikkamadu, the native MLA, not solely welcomed the inclusion of the temple within the tourism circuit, however expressed “confidence” that it will assist draw extra guests to the temple.

Conservationists level out that such shortsightedness and an incapability to see the bigger impression of such insurance policies on the panorama degree, has led to an exponential rise in human-animal battle within the area.

Underlining the contradictory strategy of the political management and the authorities, Giridhar Kulkarni, wildlife conservationist, identified that any tourism-related development or exercise inside a tiger reserve ought to be explicitly talked about within the permitted Tiger Conservation Plan.

Mr. Kulkarni stated that the Beladakuppe temple doesn’t fall inside the designated tourism zone and therefore actions that promote tourism on the web site, can’t be permitted. Incidentally, the National Tiger Conservation Authority, in response to an earlier grievance filed by Mr. Kulkarni, has already advisable that the gang ought to be curtailed and the ‘jatra’ be shifted exterior the reserve.

Activists within the area stated that the federal government ought to take steps to take the temple out of the purview of the Muzrai division and assist in efforts to relocate the temple, reasonably than encourage tourism which is able to add to habitat disturbance, degradation, and fragmentation, resulting in extra battle conditions.

There had been makes an attempt to shift the temple advanced exterior the tiger reserve, and although a number of rounds of discussions had been performed with the stakeholders, it’s but to be fruitful.