Patna: The Valmiki Tiger Reserve has been conferred the "Earth Guardian" award in recognition of its officials' efforts at revival of habitat and species in the reserve area.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan handed the award to director (ecology), Bihar environment and forests department, R.B. Singh and VTR deputy director II Amit Kumar at a function in New Delhi on Thursday.
Bihar's lone tiger reserve competed with 57 other entries at the national level. Royal Bank of Scotland has constituted the award to promote work in conserving and strengthening the ecology and environment.
VTR has impressed wildlife and ecology experts for overall improvement and has shown steady progress in tiger population from eight in 2010 to 40 in 2017. The population is expected to increase further.
The tiger reserve is spread over 899sqkm, including 598sqkm of core area and 301sqkm of buffer or peripheral area in West Champaran district. "It took concentrated efforts by our team to create situations favourable for tiger habitat so that they could settle down and breed," said Amit Kumar on the VTR's revival. "We found out that the prey density was less and obstructing growth of the tiger population. To address this, we removed weeds from the forest and developed grasslands."
Increase in fodder attracted herbivores like gaur (Indian bison) and cheetal (spotted dear) and a full-fledged breeding population developed in VTR. The availability of prey made the reserve a suitable habitat for tigers.
Among other steps, the officials moved Patna High Court last year to get a limit placed on trains that run on a broad gauge railway line which passes through the forest. The trains now cannot go beyond 60kmph during daytime and 40kmph during night.
Alignments of a few canals were also changed as they fragmented the forest. Officials also removed encroachments from around 600 hectares of forest land. "We are working towards all-round development of VTR. We have plans for rhino reintroduction here, as well as, opening an elephant rescue centre," Amit said.
However, the tiger reserve is faced with a manpower crunch as there are just 30 officials for the entire forest against a sanctioned strength of 200.
