Silence of Wildlife Mandarins and High Court Defiance Mark Himachal Board’s Sanctuary Clearances
SHIMLA: The 12th meeting of the Himachal Pradesh State Board for Wildlife has come under intense scrutiny for functioning more as an executive monologue than a scientific consultative body, as top forest and wildlife officials failed to raise a single objection to the sweeping diversion of protected habitats.
Chaired by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, the Board rubber-stamped every infrastructure and industrial proposal on the agenda without recording any dissent from the custodians of the state's flora and fauna.
Despite the presence of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and the Chief Wildlife Warden, the proceedings saw no substantive debate on the ecological cost of carving up sanctuaries or the mandatory mitigation measures required from the Public Works Department and industrial houses.
The most glaring omission during the deliberations was the complete silence surrounding the legal and judicial barriers governing the Shikari Devi Wildlife Sanctuary in Mandi district. The Board cleared the diversion of 4.72 hectares of sanctuary forest for widening and upgrading the Bhulah–Shikari Devi road in the Seraj division, seemingly bypassing the fact that road construction in this eco-sensitive belt is directly under the scanner of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
Environmentalists havev already moved the High Court seeking retribution for unauthorized forest disturbances, tree felling, and unbridled excavation inside the sanctuary, where work had previously been halted for proceeding without statutory wildlife clearances.
Approving fresh road widening in Seraj flies in the face of repeated judicial directives aimed at halting the rampant destruction of forest lands in the constituency represented by former Chief Minister and current Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur.
The High Court recently flagged 55 forest road violations in the Seraj assembly segment alone and reiterated a strict ban on the construction and tarring of forest roads and helipad projects across these fragile mountain slopes.
By pushing through the Shikari Devi road clearance while the matter remains sub judice, the Wildlife Board has effectively ignored both judicial restraint and the ongoing push for accountability over past violations.
The refusal of the Forest and Wildlife Department to demand stringent geological and ecological safeguards is particularly alarming given the catastrophic natural disasters that battered Mandi and the Seraj region during the monsoons of 2023 and 2024.
Unscientific slope cutting, vertical excavation, and the dumping of muck into natural drainage channels have turned the fragile hills of Seraj into active landslide zones, threatening both human settlements and wildlife corridors.
Converting narrow mountain tracks into wide tarmac inside a high-altitude sanctuary without an environmental impact assessment or a slope-stabilization blueprint invites another ecological catastrophe while destroying the sensitive alpine pastures inhabited by the Himalayan black bear, monal, and musk deer.
While observers acknowledge the strategic necessity of transferring 0.275 hectares in the Rakcham-Chhitkul Wildlife Sanctuary and over three hectares in Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti to the army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police for national security, the clubbing of essential border defense with commercial and avoidable road projects has exposed a complete vacuum in conservation policy.
Alongside the sanctuary roads, the Board approved a fivefold metallurgical expansion for Goyal Furnace Private Limited and a new pharmaceutical unit in Kangra without outlining any pollution buffers.
Instead of demanding accountability from construction agencies for the habitats already crushed, the wildlife brass settled for a reactive discussion on highway roadkill along the Kiratpur–Manali four-lane stretch and the ceremonial release of wildlife postcards, reducing a statutory conservation board to a clearinghouse for concrete expansion.
#SaveShikariDevi #SerajEcologicalCrisis #HimachalHighCourt #SaveHimachalWildlife
