By Balu Pulipaka
HYDERABAD: Telangana lacks adequate political and administrative support for protection of wildlife and forests, particularly with reference to wildlife sanctuaries where there are largescale encroachments inside the forests, the Wildlife Institute of India has said. In particular, the WII flagged the case of the Pakhal and the Eturnagaram wildlife sanctuaries as examples where forest encroachments have turned into a serious issue and called for inter-departmental cooperation for encroachment removals and restoration of the degraded forest patches. In its Management Effectiveness Evaluation report for 2020-25, the WII said that around 52,000 hectares of forest, in the 860 sq. km Pakhal wildlife sanctuary in Warangal district 鈥 remain under encroachment. The sanctuary, the WII said, faces challenges from illegal livestock grazing, tree felling and poaching of wildlife, along with rampant forest fires. The report said that in addition to acute shortage of staff, and poor protection infrastructure, the 鈥済overnment subsidies for farm equipment, even for encroachers, exacerbate management difficulties.鈥 The Pakhal sanctuary is home to leopard, sloth bear, nilgai, chital, jackal, langur and bonnet macaque, and a variety of other mammals and reptiles in addition to a large number of bird species. With respect to the Eturnagaram sanctuary in Mulugu district, the WII said protection efforts of this sanctuary in particular, suffer from lack of support 鈥 both political and administrative 鈥 especially with respect to encroachments. As per WII, the Eturnagaram sanctuary has problems related to livestock grazing, illegal hunting, tree felling, and unauthorised cultivation. Noting its history of left-wing extremism, the WII said this sanctuary has 32 settlements of the Gottikoya tribes, who cause 鈥渉eavy biotic disturbance鈥 and that in addition to this issue, pockets of encroachments by local villagers leads to conflicts related to forest protection activities, with tribal groups, 鈥渕any of whom enter from neighbouring states.鈥 The government and its various departments should work together to remove the encroachments, particularly those occupied by the Guttikoya tribals by providing them with attractive rehabilitation packages. Both sanctuaries, the report said, have been reporting the presence of tigers over the past few years, and called for better management plans, as Eturnagaram and Pakhal serve as connecting forest areas for big cat movement as these two sanctuaries form part of an important forest connecting Bijapur forests in Chhattisgarh through Pakhala and Papikonda national park in Andhra Pradesh鈥檚 Alluri Sitaramaraju and Eluru districts all the way to the Tadoba tiger reserve in Maharashtra.