Nanda Devi National Park best managed in state

Jotirmay Thapliyal

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Tribune News Service

Dehradun, September 10

The Nanda Devi National Park in the state has bagged a very good rank in the management effectiveness evaluation process, which evaluates the performance of protected areas in the country.

The management effectiveness evaluation (MEE) process is a global framework to evaluate the performance of protected areas. India is among the select countries in the world that has institutionalised the MEE process for its network of protected areas. The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) had independently got evaluated 125 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the country from 2006 to 2014.

Among the wildlife parks evaluated in Uttarakhand, barring the Nanda Devi National Park that has attained the very good rank, Rajaji National Park, Govind Pashu Vihar, Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary and the Gangotri National Park have all got fair ranks. The Nanda Devi National Park with the very good rank has got a MEE score of 75.78 per cent, while others Govind Pashu Vihar (52.30 per cent), Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary (59.17 per cent), and Gangotri National Park (46.67 per cent).

In the entire northern region, the Great Himalayan National Park, Himachal Pradesh, with the highest MEE score (76.5 per cent) was rated in the very good category while the Sohagi Barwa Wildlife Sanctuary, Uttar Pradesh, with the lowest MEE score (45 per cent) was rated in the fair category.

The evaluation was done on the basis of strengths, weaknesses and actionable points of the national parks and the wildlife sanctuaries. Interestingly, the mean MEE score of the protected areas is 60.80 per cent, which is higher than the global mean of 56 per cent. Teams of independent experts visited these national parks and wildlife sanctuaries for conducting MEE.

Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar, releasing the report in Dehradun on September 2, had urged the park managers to continue their efforts for conserving the biological richness of the country.