When there is no ban (forest), will there be a mukut (crown)?

State environment minister Aaditya Thackeray has written to the Centre requesting that Marki-Mangli block II not be made available for coal auctioning on August 18. The block is located near Mukutban village and on the wildlife corridor from Tadoba in Chandrapur district to Tipeshwar and Painganga in Yavatmal district, and Kawal in Telangana.

Tigers have been residing in the block since at least a decade. As of today too, there are 4-5 tigers with cubs in Mukutban. The popular Avni, shot dead 2 years ago, was born in Mukutban and dispersed towards Pandharkawda which is full of honeycomb forests interspersed with agriculture fields. TOI’s Sunil Warrier, Vijay Pinjarkar and Ranjit Deshmukh survey the area to understand the perils

And then there was Mukutban, a village rolled up in mothballs and a forested area flourishing in the midst of unbridled heritage of biodiversity.

Mukutban is pincoded to the Wani-Pandharkawda road in Yavatmal district. These two otherwise inconsiderable specks on the map of India produce coal, cotton and tur. Mukutban has a unique topographic richness of limestone on the left side of the crater-full pencil-moustache road and coal on the right.

Running parallel to the road on either side are farmlands and beyond are the forests — not ones that can be romanticized. They are not protected areas like Tadoba, Pench or Tipeshwar tiger sanctuaries and reserves where thick overgrowth camouflages the sky. This is shrubby land, with native trees aplenty.

Tigress Avni, aka T1, which made every other Indian an expert on wildlife, was born at Mukutban. Believed to have killed 13 humans, Avni migrated through these fragmented shrubby forests interspersed with farms and narrow roads to Pandharkawda, before falling to bullets 50 kms from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary three years ago. Forest records show Avni’s forefathers have been Mukutban residents for eight-nine years. Today, its ‘close relatives’ have taken up permanent residence there.

It is this Mukutban area that the Centre is putting up for auction on August 18 as part of its Atmanibhar Bharat Abhiyan. Mukutban lies in the coal-rich Marki-Mangli block II which is being showcased to private players. Block II falls on the right side of the road. On the left is Block III, abandoned for a few years now. Another two kilometres away is Birla Corporation Limited’s wholly owned subsidiary Reliance Cementation Company Private Limited (RCCPL). The unit has been granted additional forest land for limestone mining.

The factory and mines are considerable specks that can cause huge harm to the wildlife landscape in the southern part of Maharashtra, bordering Telangana. The once-connected fragmented forests offer a protected route to dispersing tigers and other animals from Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Chandrapur district towards Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Yavatmal, and to Kawal Tiger Reserve in Telangana.

Environmental activists, who see the big destruction picture, have questioned the rationale of digging up Mukutban for coal on two counts. First, it doesn’t match with the government’s stand on protecting tigers and, second, when the country is committed towards solar energy, what is the need for digging out more coal — the primary ingredient in power generation. On August 10, state environment minister Aaditya Thackeray wrote to the coal minister, asking him to reconsider the decision to auction Marki-Mangli II as it would "cause irreparable damage to the forest ecosystem and the wildlife depending on it".

"Fragmented landscapes outside protected areas need to be managed as they are the main connecting corridors for tigers," says honorary wildlife warden of Yavatmal district Ramzan Virani.

There are four coal blocks in Mukutban forest range, which falls in the Zari-Jamni tehsil of Pandharkawda division. Of this, Marki-Mangli I is still operational and has been allocated to a Nagpur-based company. II has now been listed for auction. Mining work had started in III and IV blocks but is now suspended. Blocks II, III and IV, originally allocated to Shree Virangana Steels Limited in 2005, were in the thick of controversy and hence withdrawn by the coal ministry for breach of trust.

The Marki-Mangli block II, which is boxed in by tiger-bearing areas and farms on both sides, will encroach upon the forest area (compartment no.s 20B & 32A) in Bhendala and Saoli villages. It will also affect the Pawnar area which too has resident tigers.

In 2005, mining was done on non-forest land in Block II. When the men and machines left, the abandoned mine turned into a perennial water body. "It acts as a water source for wildlife and farmers," says Shankar Gungunwar, who owns a 3.5-acre farm near the mine area.

Men posted by Western Coalfields Limited to guard the unlifted coal are perched on a 10-foot high ramshackle machaan to protect themselves. "There are tigers in the adjoining forest," one of them said.

Farmer Ramesh Barlawar recalls sighting a tigress with two sub-adult cubs along the dirt road between Marki-Mangli coal blocks II and III. It further connects with the forests towards Telangana.

The sandy area is fertile and most farms are owned by the Perki, Yelmi and Reddy communities from Mukutban. The villagers say if mining is done, they will be forced to part with their land. "If a group of farmers adjoining our farm sells land for mines, we too will be forced to do so as mining will make our agriculture land unproductive. If we are paid between `15-25 lakh per acre, we will sell our land," says Diwakar Mandulwar.

Virani, who is monitoring the fourth generation of tigers in Pandharkawda division, fears that land diversion due to human activities will disconnect corridors from each other and leave tigers directionless. "It will flare up man-animal conflict. Therefore, it is important to secure forest zones as well as adjoining private land to keep corridors alive," he says, adding that the environmental impact of just Mukutban alone cannot be considered. "It is essential to look into the entire Pandharkawda forest division."

Humans understand land as fragmented and non-fragmented. "But for tigers, all of it is home. They avoid human presence and live successfully in such landscapes," adds Virani.

A recent decision taken by the state government has further enhanced the need to protect the fragmented forests of Pandharkawda division. To the south of Tadoba lies the proposed Kanhargaon Sanctuary, a huge forest of 210 sq km. Tigers from Tadoba use Kanhargaon to move towards Tipeshwar and Kawal. "If these small forests are further broken up, tigers will encroach into human territory and chances of man-animal conflict will increase," says Virani.

Founder of the NGO Eco-Pro Bandu Dhotre, who drew Thackeray’s attention to Marki-Mangli, raises a point: "Mukutban and other forested patches hold residential tigers moving towards Kawal and Painganga sanctuary (Yavatmal district). It is important to add genetic variations in the pool for sustenance of the species. Commercial activities like mines will impact tiger populations."

Marki-Mangli II coal block is part of the tiger conservation plan (TCP) of Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) as it falls in the Tadoba-Tipeshwar tiger corridor. After TOI’s report on July 10, as per NTCA protocol, a SOP committee meeting was held on July 30 to examine issues related to Marki-Mangli II coal block.

"We have submitted a report to the chief wildlife warden on July 31, mentioning that not only is the block a contiguous patch having several dispersing tigers, but it also consists of resident breeding tigress population. Giving up forest land will lead to disturbance in the breeding behaviour of tigers and increase man-animal conflict," said Pandharkawda deputy conservator KM Abharna.

Meanwhile, land diversion hurdles have halted RCCPL’s expansion plans, even though the previous BJP-Shiv Sena government fast-tracked the clearance and the company was allotted 467.50 acres of forest land for limestone mining on January 23, 2018. After Avni’s death, wildlifers had protested that tigers were being systematically ejected from their habitat.

While investigating, the forest department stumbled upon Tadoba’s Tiger Conservation Plan which showed that the plant falls in the notified corridor. Moreover, in December 2014, Marki-Mangli block II was declared as inviolate by the Union environment ministry. The company will now have to obtain additional clearances from state and national wildlife boards. Forest surveys show the presence of four-five resident tigers including male, female and sub-adult cubs in the forest area proposed for diversion.

Virani drives home the point that saving the tiger has additional benefits. "Tiger is the focus animal of the country. When you protect it, you are also protecting a wide variety of animals, insects, trees etc which are found in tiger-bearing areas. If the environmental impact of Mukutban is studied, it will surely reveal the monstrosity of the loss," he says.

On an earlier plea by the state government, the Centre had to knock off the Bander coal block, in the buffer area of Tadoba, from the Atmanirbhar Abhiyan auction list. Maharashtra too has said no to the Railways’ proposal to broad-gauge the line running through Melghat Tiger Reserve. Marki-Mangli is the third time that the state is showing a green heart. Environmentalists hope that Aaditya Thackeray’s polite letter to coal minister Pralhad Joshi will give occasion for making it a hat-trick of green celebrations.