Bantwal: Ruins of an ancient temple was found in the thicket in Kedage near Allipade in Devasya Padoor village here. The statues like sculptures are attracting curious people towards it. As per experts these remaining are of the temple of Brahma Baidarkala (Garody).

Aitappa Bangera, a local resident found the ruins of the temple while he was cutting grass in the forest. He had notices Paape (face) made of mud, Kadtale (sword) and Manigante (bell). During holy questioning (Ashtamangala prashne) it has been learnt that there was a temple of Koti Chennaya (Garody) in this place.

As the news spread in the region, locals and other people coming to the spot to have a look at the ancient holy monuments. The locals are now planning to build a temple in this place with the help of local authority.

Mysuru:  “Forest officials need not recover the three acres of forest land encroached by the public for their livelihood”, said Ramanath Rai Minister for Forest, Environment and Ecology on Friday February 20.

He was addressing media persons at the review meeting with the Forest officials of Mysuru region. Addressing the officers he said that The High Court has ordered not to clear the 3 acres of Forest land, that had minor encroachments.

But the families which have encroached more than 10 acres of land must be cleared by initiating drives to conserve forest land. The identification of deemed forest areas in the region has been completed and it is at the approval stage. Around 170 acres has been recognized in the region, while District Administration must consider C and D groups before declaring the area as deemed forest area.

Vinay Luthra,  Chief Conservator of Forest said, “The lands that are encroached before 1978 and the lands approved after 1980 have not been denotified by the officers. Moreover the government is now planning to  denotify them.”

In Mysuru region,  a total of 1823 families have encroached 222.73138 acres and among this 506. 48 acres of land encroached by 41 families have been recovered. Basic facilities are a must and the Forest officials should make sure that they provide sanitation and sufficient water facilities in the respective forest areas.

Environment activist Jadav Payeng was conferred with the Padma Shri award on the 25th of January 2015 in recognition of his service to society and the environment. We salute him and congratulate him for this recognition.

Majuli islander Jadav Payeng loved trees and greenery so much that it pained his heart to see his beloved island turn into a barren wasteland due to deforestation and flooding.

"All species on this planet are animals, including humans. The only difference is that humans wear clothes. There are no monsters in nature except humans," he says, "humans consume everything until there is nothing left. Nothing is safe from humans, not even tigers or elephants."

With no help from anyone, he started planting trees on this 550 hectare land in the year 1979.

Today, a vast green forest stands as proof of his effort and perseverance. 

Animals such as elephants, rhinos and deer roam his forest, and after 40 years, carrion birds such as as vultures have returned to the forest too.

But Payeng’s real test starts now. People and poachers lie in wait at every corner to cut down his trees or shoot down the animals that live there. Payeng says, “I will continue to plant until my last breath. I tell people, cutting trees will not get you anything. Cut me before you before cut my trees.”

Imagine if one Forest Man could do so much in 40 years, what we all could do in just one year?

Moodabidre: The fire which broke out in the forest region near Sarvodaya school in Kallamundkur here on Monday afternoon is taking the forest region in its arms. The fire personnel are trying to douse the fire.

The fire broke in the forest region near Sarvoday school in Kallamundkur on Monday January 12. Fire personnel had succeeded in dousing the fire. Later on the same night the fire again noticed in the region and it was again doused by the fire personnel.

On Tuesday morning once again fire erupted in the region. The fire experts are trying to douse the fire. As there is no road to go inside the forest the fire department vehicles were made to park on the road side, which has made it difficult for the fire brigade staff to douse the fire.

Karkala:  It’s a common sight for the people of Mala that forest officials often release the captured wild animals in the village. But on Wednesday December 31 the scene was a little different. On Wednesday locals forcefully dispelled the forest officials as they were allegedly trying to release a captured leopard near the inhabited village Mala.

The incident occurred near Kadari bridge in Karkala. The leopard was caught in a trap in Venur forest area covering Naravi-Hosmar on Tuesday December 30. The caged leopard was being transported in a jeep to the SK border area via Bajagoli road.

The villagers somehow learnt about this and gathered near Kadari forest check post. The check post officials, who saw this, immediately opened the gates as the vehicle transporting the leopard approached them. The youth, angered by this, followed the vehicle on their bikes. They waylaid the jeep at Kadari bridge and took a task on the forest officials.

As the situation was going out of control, the forest officials tried to pacify the villagers. They gave evasive replies that they were about to leave the leopard at Kudremukh Wildlife Sanctuary. As the villagers were not satisfied with the answers from the forest officials they stood form on their decision of not allowing the jeep to cross the Kadari bridge. 

Finally forest officials bowed their heads before the Mala people and took the captured leopard to Pilikula Nisargadhama.

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Mulleria: Forest officers arrested a person who hunted down a wild boar after entering into the government reserve forest. Officers have seized one wild boar and two bikes from the arrested person.

The arrested person has been identified as Ramachandra (35) resident of Parappa Maiyyala house. The other two persons Damodar and Ravi of Parappa Enkannamule have managed to flee away from the police. Police team is searching for them.

The arrest was done by forest officer M.K Narayanan along with forest personnel Prakash, Ashraf, Manoj, Narasimha and Suresh.

Mulky: Two decomposed bodies were found in a hilly region in Kerekad here on Friday November 28 afternoon.

The bodies which believed to be of lovers were located in the thicket forest region of Kerakdu. The decyaeed bodies were found by some locals who went to collect the fire wood on Friday.  The bodies were in hanging position to a tree and were completely decomposed.

Ropes, hooks, cloths and other items were recovered from the place. As the body is completely decomposed the identification of the deceased was not possible. Locals also tried to indentify the bodies but failed.

Mulky police arrived at the spot and investigation is on. Further details waited.

The shocking scenes of a bear attacking a man in Tumkur were making rounds in social media. More shocking was to see that in midst of the tragedy going on in front of the people some were managed to take videos and photos of the incident instead of trying to save the victim.

As per eye witness there were around two thousand people gathered in the spot to see the rampage by the bear. But nobody tried to save the man named Timmanna who was working as a waterman. The footage shows that the bear was rupturing the head of the victim and everybody shouting and trying to scare away the wild animal. Even police officials came to the spot and they too preferred to watch the brutal scene as mere spectators. Later the bear was killed by the forest officials by putting six bullets into its body.But the question here is who is the culprit. Is it the bear which was starving and was searching for the food or is it the people who indulged in taking photographs instead of saving the victim.

Wild animals especially tiger, leopard, lion or bear are tend to attack humans as they are carnivorous animals. Now a days due to lack of food and habitat these wild animals often visit human residential area and pose danger to the people. On November 17 also as Timmanna was on his way to work the bear attacked him and brutally killed him.  Earlier also the same bear had attacked a man named Somanna who went to the hill to graze his cattle.

But the life of Timmanna could have certainly saved had people shown some courage to intimidate the wild bear by running close to it together all at once instead of taking videos and posting it on social media. The craze for getting noticed in social media shave made man less responsive towards society.

More over even the police who had riffles and lathis with them feared to reach close to the bear. It’s a wild animal and like all wild animals bear also gets intimidated when humans get close to it. Sometime it gets furious and attacks people but many times animal prefer to stay away from human beings. Even a tiger or a leopard runs away when people in a group reach close to it. So a wild bear which is not as attacking as compared to tiger or leopard would run away quickly.

The sad part is that the bear was later killed by forest officials. Why? There could have put it in a cage and transported it to some remote parts of the jungle or just handed over to some zoo. But the authorities thought the bear was posing danger to human lives and without any second thought killed it inhumanely. It’s like you killed people, we kill you policy from the forest department officials. But the reality is different although the bear had killed Somanna before it attacked Timmanna the forest officials had not made any preparation to catch the animal.

Even after it killed Timmanna the forest personnel came to the spot without any net, cage or even tranquilizer to disable the bear. The tranquilizers had to be brought from Bannerugatta which the forest personnel never did.  It clearly shows the failure from the forest official’s part. Instead they preferred to shoot the wild animal and solve the problem forever. Now after few days another bear will appear in the region and the solution to save the human lives is kill it. In Tumakur case both Timmanna and the bear could have been saved but unfortunately that never happened.