• Environmental Review of Activities Undertaken for Habitat Improvement and Management in Periyar Tiger Reserve
   

• Environmental Review of Activities Undertaken for Village Ecodevelopment under IEP in Periyar Tiger Reserve

Salient findings

Periyar has been one of the important sites in past and present that has attracted a large number of researchers to conduct research on diverse topics. The PA has a fairly well established database on its biodiversity values. The recently Management Plan is structured by inputs from all scientific studies conducted till date and is elaborately conditioned by the insight and experience of managers. Major PA threats have been determined and the possible solutions to address these have also been proposed. This has provided the greatest advantage to the implementation of IEP which actually became a means to implement the earlier developed strategies in an effective manner in this PA site. The implementation of most activities started in 1998. The effective time has therefore been enough to establish some positive impacts of the project. A comparison of pre project and post project implementation information on important indicators of threats to PA and social benefits to dependent human communities provide convincing evidence of the successful implementation of some planned activities that have started yielding dividends (See Box 1).

The activity which need special effort and sensitivity is the impacts of pilgrimage. The religious sentiment attached to the existence of PA will allow only ‘soft’ approaches to work which may have limited positive impacts.

The only pitfalls that are feared are those from reversal of trends of exploitative practices. With the forces of markets dictating the economy of most EDC engaged in activities to reduce dependence on PA (e.g. EDCs of Vayana bark collectors, Sabrimala pilgrimage management, sale of pepper seed and vermicompost production and those that have received agricultural loan), the slightest disturbance in market trends would adversely impact the sustenance of livelihoods.

The strong monitoring commitment on part of PA that is already evident will be able to drive this project to render support in a major way to conservation of biodiversity values of this important PA.