New Delhi, Aug. 27: The tribal affairs ministry has decided to approach the Supreme Court to be made a party in an ongoing case on tiger tourism, banned from core areas in reserves following an interim order last month.

The decision to move the court follows a number of pleas that claimed such a ban on commercial activities in these areas would threaten the rights of millions of forest dwellers and those who depended on tourism for their livelihood.

“Forest department officials are notifying buffer zones and core areas in and around tiger reserves, restricting movement of tribal people. The officials are also putting restrictions on agricultural activities and collection of minor forest produce by tribal people in these areas,” said Tushar Dash, a researcher with Vasundhara, a Bhubaneswar-based NGO working for the rights of forest dwellers.

Sources said the ministry would file an affidavit seeking to be impleaded in the case that last week saw the court rap the government for backtracking on its earlier wildlife guidelines calling for a ban on commercial activities in the core areas.

The court had imposed the ban on the basis of the guidelines that said all commercial activities were to be restricted to the buffer zones, peripheral to the core areas. Conservationist Ajay Dubey had sought the intervention for implementing these guidelines, issued under the 1972 wildlife act.

Based on Dubey’s plea, the court had on July 24 issued an interim order directing Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to notify buffer zones in tiger reserves within three weeks.

Last week, when the Centre sought time to review these guidelines, the bench said the government would have to explain the shift in its stand.

The WildLife Protection Act provides for notification of buffer and core areas in and around tiger reserves. The law says forest departments have to assess if tribal residents in these areas were affecting tiger habitats. If these people did not create any problems for the animals, they should be allowed to stay on.

If human habitations were, however, found to be posing a threat to tigers, then the people should be relocated after proper compensation. But Dash said relocation should be the “last option”.

“The ministry feels that it will be injustice if the tribal people are asked to relocate without ascertaining how their existence would endanger tigers in their area,” a tribal affairs ministry official said.