Cowherds want to live close to Lions

The Cowherd community has written to Union forests and environment minister Jairam Ramesh requesting that they may not be moved out of the Gir sanctuary. They have said that the authorities should not consider them eriemines of big cats.

The community has sent a memorandum to Ramesh through anon- government organization, Setu, opposing the rehabilitation. Since 1972, the government has officially resettled 952 Cowherd families and many other inhabitants when the Gir national park was established. They say that these families have suffered badly as they were deprived of basic requirements like drinking and irrigation water, electricity school and transportation facilities. The memorandum said that they did not even get the benefit of government schemes such as Rojgar Yojana and other welfare schemes.

They claim that the land they got was of poor quality arid because of water shortage, cultivating that land was difficult. They also said that the eight acres of land which they got as the compensation put them in the category of big farmers and disqualified them from government schemes and thus made them poorer. A report by Gujarat government’s directorate of evaluation on the rehabilitation programme of Gir cowherd scheme said, “It has not been possible to achieve the objective of bringing the socio-economic uplift of the Gir cowherds. On the contrary the net income earned by the shifted families in 1986-87 is significantly less than the net income earned by families still inside, 10 years after rehabilitation.”

Cowherds have also urged the minister and environment experts to understand that the lion has been part of their lives and culture. “They have been living together since centuries, without which, the survival of both is difficult. The cowherds worship lions as one of their gods,” the letter said.

Courtesy:- The Times Of India, Thursday, 3rd February,2010.

The movie is part of a new plan which aims to reduce conflicts between villagers and lions that prey on their livestock. The department will also shift 800 other families residing at Jambutala village. These families were moved earlier from the forest and brought to the village to resettle. The government has worked out a compensation package which may be acceptable to them, said the forests official.

The state forest department has decided to shift more than 400 Cowherds families staying in Gir sanctuary limits.

The move is part of a new plan which aims to reduce conflicts between villagers and lions that prey on their livestock.

The department will also shift 800 other families residing at Jambutala village. These families were moved earlier from the forest and brought to the village to resettle.

The plans are part of the Rs 262 crore Brihad Gir (Greater Gir) project aimed at lions’ Conservation. It will include, apart from shifting Cowherds, developing new sanctuaries in the Sasan Bhavnagar stretch, where also the big cats are found these days. The rehabilitation of the Cowherds alone will cost Rs 179 crore.

The 2010 Lion Census revealed that lions have now found homes in Amreli, Junagadh and Bhavnagar districts. Forest officials said that according to the plan, each family relocated outside the sanctuary will get Rs 10 lakh as compensation.

Generations of Cowherds have been living inside the Gir forest and have consistently refuted State Government’s proposals to relocate them starting 1972. However, the government has worked out a compensation package which may be acceptable to them, said the forests officials.

The officials found that with the big cats moving out of the protected area, there
was a threat to the Cowherds lives. Also, an increase in livestock numbers had increased the pressure on the ecosystem within the sanctuary.

Gujarat’s principal secretary for forest and environment S.K. Nanda told Times of India (TOI) that the Centre and state government had cleared the proposal and the department is now waiting for the money.