Hyderabad: Lack of water bodies in forests is a worry

Hyderabad: Forest officers are worried about the lack of sufficient water bodies in forest areas, now that the rainy season is over.They plan to install artificial water bodies before the summer season arrives and temperatures begin to soar.In their search for scarce sources of water in summer, wild animals venture into villages, making them vulnerable.

In the districts, animals are often trapped when they stray outside their natural forest habitat.  To avoid this, the forest department will instal solar pumps in areas where there are no water bodies.

The GIS cell of the forest department has been instructed to collect data of existing water bodies and the grids with no water bodies so that officials can identify the places where artificial water bodies are required. Every four square kilometres is a grid.

All protected areas in the state including the Amrabad tiger reserve, the Kawal tiger reserve and other wild life sanctuaries, cover about 2493 grids.

Of these only 520 grids have sufficient water bodies and about 1,973 grids contain no water bodies at all. In unprotected forest divisions, nine sq km is a grid. Shockingly, there are only 1,034 grids with water bodies while 5,291 grids have no water bodies.

This means a wild animal will be unable to find a water body in nine sq km of area. This will ultimately force the animal to move towards the villages in search of water.