NEW DELHI - A narrow patch of forest, critical for movement of tigers and elephants in Nainital district of Uttarakhand, has been blocked due to an infrastructure project resulting in a serious man-animal conflict, conservation organisations said here Friday.

The narrow patch of forest across the Gola river near Lalkuan area is the only critical corridor for movement of tigers and elephants between Terai Central and Terai East forest divisions.

With the destruction of this vital corridor the entire Terai Arc Landscape stretching from the Yamuna river near Saharanpur in the west to the Bagmati river near the Chitwan National Park in Nepal in the East has been divided into two zones.

The destruction of this corridor has affected free movement of wild elephants, thereby increasing crop damage and human killing on both sides of the corridor, said a joint statement issued by the Corbett Foundation, Wildlife Protection Society of India, Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF)-India.

The corridor, identified by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in 2003, featured prominently in a book, “Right of Passage”, published by the WTI in 2005. The corridor was also endorsed by the chief wildlife warden of Uttarakhand and the Project Elephant Directorate under the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).

However, ignoring the scientific rationale, the Uttarakhand forest department allowed large-scale infrastructure development in this corridor and encroachment in this area has further aggravated the problem, the statement added.

Concerned by the loss of this corridor in the Terai Arc Landscape, the MoEF convened an meeting with the stakeholders Wednesday to discuss the status of this problem.

At a follow-up meeting here Friday, the Corbett Foundation, Wildlife Protection Society of India, WTI and WWF-India decided that this issue will have to be tackled with a great sense of urgency.

The representatives of the four NGOs plan to join a team from the MoEF for a site visit with Uttarakhand forest officials to assess the ground situation. The team will then come up with a joint report on the mitigation measures.