ITANAGAR, 5 Jul: The Aboriginal Tribal Inhabitant Villagers of Itanagar Capital Region (ATIVICR) in a press conference on Tuesday urged the state government to “denotify all the areas coming under the Itanagar reserve forest.”
Addressing the media, ATIVICR general secretary Nera Techi referred to “the government’s rationalisa-tion map of the Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary (IWLS)” and demanded that the government “immediately reconsider the proposal of rationalisation of wildlife sanctuary and de-reserve the IWLS.”
Techi said that the organisation would resort to democratic stir if its demand is not met.
He said that the ATIVICR had on 13 January
submitted a memorandum to the chief minister, “proposing for rationalisation of the map of the IWLS, wherein it stated that the government has proposed to exclude an area of 74.454 sq kms out of 140 sq kms from the IWLS as a rationalisation plan and left with 65.454 sq kms to remain as the existing IWLS.”
The organisation added that it submitted a representation to the office of the principal chief conservator of forest (PCCF) on Tuesday, “mentioning that the total land area of 170.386 sq kms under the rationalisation map of IWLS is totally inadmissible to aboriginal tribal people.”
It informed that the PCCF and the ATIVICR would hold a meeting next Monday regarding the issue.
The organisation said also that the forest department in 1976-’78 formed the Itanagar reserve forest “without the consent or knowledge of the residents of Teipu, Bubub, Chulupu, Becha, Bibi, Moa, Doria, Borum, Sood, Baath, Ganga, Chimi, Chimpu, Jollang, Papu, Tarajuli, Lekhi, Nirjuli, and Model villages.”
