The Reserve Had To Bear The Brunt After NTCA Guidelines Were Implemented To Create A Critical Tiger Habitat Jaipur: It was a National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) guideline way back in 2006 that eventually left the Ranthambore tiger reserve bereft of enough forest area on the periphery that could be declared as a buffer zone after the Supreme Court directives now. Though the state forest department has notified a buffer zone for the Ranthambore tiger reserve after the Supreme Court directives but instead of a continuous, peripheral zone, the buffer in this case is fragmented, isolated pieces of land at various corner of the critical tiger habitat. Sources revealed that soon after the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) act in 2006, the NTCA came up with guidelines for declaring Critical Tiger Habitats (CTH) for reserves across the country. The declaration of critical wildlife habitat (or critical tiger habitats in tiger reserves) was a mandatory part of the Forest Rights Bill so as to demarcate areas required to be kept as inviolate for the purposes of wildlife conservation. “This would have also ensured that despite the Forest Rights Bill relocation of villagers from the core areas of the reserves is not hindered. The NTCA had then issued guidelines and as a general directives mentioned that a minimum inviolate space of 800-1000 sq. km. should be maintained in tiger reserves to support a viable population of tiger. The state forest department took the guidelines as directives and declared the entire area of the reserve, the core area and the buffer, as a CTH,” sources said. Till then Ranthambore had separate core and a buffer zones but after the guidelines the state combined the two for making it into an about 1,200 sq km of CTH. In fact a study on tiger reserves in the country by the ministry of forest and environment gave full marks to the Ramthambore reserve for having a delineated buffer zone. “Few had realized then that some day the Supreme Court would once again come up with new directives of creating a separate buffer zone also for reserves,” sources said. Ranthambore tiger reserve was amongst the first nine tiger reserve declared in 1973 at the launch of Project Tiger in India, Ranthambore originally comprised the former Sawai Madhopur Wildlife Sanctuary in an area of 392.5 sq km. Later in 1980, the Ranthambore national park was carved out within an area of 274.5 sq km. In the then tiger reserve, the National Park area was managed as the core and the rest as buffer until in 1992 Keoladeo sanctuary having area of 674 sq km of protected forest, Sawai Mansingh sanctuary with an area of 127 sq km, Kwalji closed area of 7.58 sq km and some other forest areas were added to the reserve. Sources said that of the 297 sq km of buffer that has been added to the park, 92 sq km is in Sawai Madhopur and the rest is in Bundi and Tonk. The 92 sq km buffer in Sawai Madhopur is actually 10 fragments of forest of which the biggest is 48 sq km. Out of this 48 sq km, 4 sq km has rich alluvial soil and is encroached by farmers and the rest is 44 sq km land. “Of this 44 sq km, 22 sq km is revenue land and the rest 22 sq km is divided into six fragments the largest of which is 6 sq km,” sources said. “What the state could have done when it was asked to create a CTH in 2006 was to carve out such a habitat in a lesser area and leave some parts of the forest for the buffer. But then no one realised that one day it would have to carve out a buffer zone too. However, it is not just Ranthambore that faces such plight many other tiger reserves in the country will too face scarcity of forest tracts for declaring a separate buffer zone,” he added.