Conservation Reserves and Community Reserve

• Conservation reserves and community reserves are terms denoting protected areas which typically act as buffer zones to or connectors and migration corridors between established national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and reserved and protected forests of India.
• Such areas are designated as conservation areas if they are uninhabited and completely owned by the Government of India but used for subsistence by communities, and community areas if part of the lands are privately owned.
• These protected area categories were first introduced in the Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act of 2002 − the amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972.
• Amendments to the Wildlife protection act in 2003, provided a mechanism for recognition and legal backing to the community initiated efforts in wildlife protection.
• It provides a flexible system to achieve wildlife conservation without compromising community needs.
• These categories were added because of reduced protection in and around existing or proposed protected areas due to private ownership of land and land use.
• These categories roughly correspond to IUCN Category V (conservation reserves) and VI (community reserves) protected areas.

Tillari Conservation Reserve

• The Maharashtra Government has declared 29.53 sq km area of Dodamarg forest range in Sindhudurg district as ‘Tillari Conservation Reserve’. (Jul 2020)
  • Tillari is the seventh wildlife corridor in the state to be declared as a ‘conservation reserve’.
  • The area covering nine villages in the forest range is known to serve as a corridor and even as a habitat for the population of tigers and elephants moving between the three states of Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra.
  • It connects the Mhadei sanctuary in Goa and Bhimgad in Karnataka.
  • It has semi-evergreen forests, tropical moist deciduous forests, and a number of unique trees, butterflies, and flowers.

List of Indian Conservation Reserves