MAPUSA
Leader of Opposition, Michael Lobo said Goa indeed has resident tigers and insisted on conducting a thorough study before declaring a tiger reserve in the State.
Lobo, on Monday, also said considering the small size of the State some concessions have to be made while drawing the buffer zone.
“There are people who have houses in the forests. If the area is declared a tiger reserve it will have several implications on these people. Therefore proper study has to be done. If they have to declare it as a tiger reserve then only certain areas should be considered and the regulations on buffer zones should be relaxed due to the small size of the State,” Lobo said.
Forest Minister Vishwajit Rane had recently made a case against a tiger reserve in the State claiming that there were no tigers in the State and those that were sighted in Goa’s forest were non-resident tigers.
Disputing the forest minister’s claim of non-resident tigers, Lobo said there were tigers in the State and stressed that it was the duty of the Conservator of Forest and the forest guards to keep strict vigil on movement of tigers.
“There are tigers in Goa. They walk around 20 to 30 kms a day. They go to Karnataka and come back to Goa. It’s not that they are not our tigers like the forest minister claims,” he said.
According to Lobo, there were both positive and negative points in declaring a tiger reserve.
“If you declare a tiger reserve then tigers will be safe but then you will have to remove those houses of our people which are in the reserve and bring them out,” he said.
He further said that there were a lot of issues when a certain area was declared as a tiger reserve.
“It’s not that the tiger reserve should be declared tomorrow. One needs to do a study on the issue. I respect the environmentalists who love tigers. Even I love tigers. But at the same we will have to come out with some other formula to see that the tigers are protected,” Lobo said.
