[Assam] Unesco sees Manas still in danger, ignores Majuli

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

        Unesco sees Manas still in danger, ignores Majuli 
    ROOPAK GOSWAMI       Guwahati, July 2: Assam will want to forget the 31st session of the World Heritage Committee in a hurry. If the session at Christchurch in New Zealand opened without Majuli being even listed for discussion, it ended with the committee deciding to retain Manas National Park on the World Heritage Site in Danger list. 
  The decision came despite efforts by the state government to get the national park off the “danger” category and back into the World Heritage Site list. 
  The session, which concluded today, has asked India to invite a joint team from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Unesco Monitoring Mission to Manas in June next year so that the agencies can “assess” the state of the national park. 
  “The discussions resulted in a decision for India to invite a joint IUCN/Unesco monitoring mission. The mission will take place before the next committee meeting in June/July 2008. During this mission, IUCN and UNESCO will assess the state of conservation of Manas with particular attention on the status of the site with respect to wildlife and habitat, as well as management,” Josephine Langley, World Heritage monitoring officer at the international Union for Conservation of Nature, said in an email to The Telegraph. 
  “The mission to Manas will assess the progress in implementing the corrective measures which were recommended by the 2005 mission, and also indicate a definite time-frame for their implementation,” Kishore Rao, deputy director at the World Heritage Centre, said. 
  Manas was declared a World Heritage site in 1985. But its status was downgraded to that of a World Heritage Site in Danger in 1992, when militants nearly took over the wildlife sanctuary. 
  “The committee noted that rhinoceros and swamp deer populations have declined drastically. The single existing rhino is the first step in a reintroduction programme as the native population became locally extinct. There have been no sightings of swamp deer for some years. Other species also have very low and declining populations. IUCN is particularly interested to see the results for local tiger population surveys,” Langley said. 
  A senior forest official said the department was doing its best to reinstate Manas in the World Heritage Site list. “We have taken some steps but we know that a lot more needs to be done” the official added. 
  The Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India was asked by the ministry of environment and forests to do an assessment of the habitat and species status in December 2006. The institute noted that normality was returning to the sanctuary and that it could be removed from the Unesco danger list. 

       
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