Mumbai: Tribal people living around six tiger reserves in central India helped provide water for wildlife.
Under the banner of Satpuda Foundation, village children, youngsters and women seek to clean and de-silt around 76 existing waterholes, build 38 new check dams and construct seven new waterholes.
The foundation aims to protect wildlife and forests across the Satpuda landscape and to promote ecologically sustainable development among rural and urban communities in the region
The Satpuda landscape includes the forests of Kanha, Satpura Tiger Reserve, Pench (Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh), Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, Melghat Tiger Reserve, Navegaon-Nagzira and all areas connecting these prime wildlife pockets.
Experts view the landscape as the largest contiguous tiger habitat in the world. It hosts around 300 tigers. Satpuda Foundation works at both the grassroots level and policy level to promote protect wildlife and forests.
The foundation teams have worked in more than 120 buffer villages of Tiger Reserves like Pench Maharashtra, Pench Madhya Pradesh, Navegaon-Nagzira, Satpuda, Tadoba-Andhari and Kanha Tiger Reserve spread across the Satpuda landscape.
“We have been regularly doing this since 2005. But with our spread in the Satpuda Landscape with the financial assistance of Born Free Foundation, the activity has taken a shape of community movement now,” Kishor Rithe, president of Satpuda Foundation, told the Deccan Herald.
He said the people built a total of 38 check dams during 2015-16 using locally available materials. “These dams, mostly built on streams, help retain water and recharge the water table. Some of them provide drinking water to domestic animals and those close to forest provide water to wild animals,” Rithe added.
Volunteers comprising adult villagers, members of Self Help Groups the foundation had mentored and village school children started building check dams after November 2015, Rithe said.
Anoop Awasthi, Assistant Director (Conservation), said the foundation’s water conservation program has also addressed the issue of human health and cleanliness. “We dug a total of 45 soak pits across the landscape. The soak pits, dug next to wells/hand pumps in villages, collect spillover and run-off water and help recharge the water table, thereby addressing the human health and human-wildlife conflict issues,” he added.