Wild Lands is a unique programme that aims to create a buffer to the existing Protected Areas of the country by identifying, prioritising, securing and/or managing unprotected wild lands of critical importance to threatened species. Its immediate priorities are securing elephant corridors and tiger linkages acquiring fast fragmenting mangroves on the Kerala coast, and reviving and securing coral reefs on the western coast in Gujarat.
Identifying, Mapping and securing elephant corridors
A list of 88 critical elephant corridors has been compiled and groundtruthed. The next phase of this project seeks to establish a secure legal and ownership status for the land. WTI has acquired and added the Edayarhalli-Doddasampige (also known as the Bekkatur-Arabikere corridor at Kollegal) corridor that connects the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) sanctuary with the Kollegal Forest Division in Karnataka.
Two other corridors being worked upon are the Siju-Rewak corridor in Meghalaya and the Tirunelli-Kudrakote corridor in the Wayanad sanctuary in Kerala. WTI is also assisting the government of Uttaranchal in securing the Chilla-Motichur corridor in the Rajaji National Park, which connects the two crucial ranges on either side of river Ganga, helping maintain habitat and population contiguity. The programme is also expanding outside the scope of elephant corridors to include critical private lands such as the coffee plantations and cardamom estates that contain tropical shola and rain forests in the Western Ghats, coral reef habitats, important bird habitats and traditionally conserved areas using the provisions of two newly introduced categories of Protected Areas in the amended Wildlife Protection Act namely, Community and Conservation Reserves.
