Villages
About 200 villages are situated in and around the reserve of which 120 villages are within the sanctuary limits. There are 24 villages in the core area of the reserve, comprising 557 families with a population of 2,285 mostly Chenchu people. 8,432 families with a population of 43,978 live within the sanctuary limits outside the core. 80 villages with 24,531 families consisting of 122,751 people live in the fringe areas. The overall population density of the reserve is 0.2 persons per km2. The population grew at the rate of 1.3 per cent over the inter-census period 1981-1991.
There are about 15,000 domestic animals in the villages in the core area. The annual growth is around 400 Livestock population in non-core part of the Reserve is 43,350. Around 300,000 migratory cattle enter into the reserve from the plains, immediately after the onset of monsoons.
One village has been relocated in 10 years. Efforts to relocate other villagers have been made but it is felt that these Chenchu tribals could also co-exist with the natural system since their needs are basic and simple. In this situation it is better to work with the people to protect the forest. There is a village on the Srisailam highway that is expanding into agriculture, and serious attention should be given to its relocation in the future, before major encroachments are made into the forest.
Read more about this topic: Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve
Famous quotes containing the word villages:
“Glorious, stirring sight! The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here today—in next week tomorrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped—always somebody else’s horizons! O bliss! O poop- poop! O my! O my!”
—Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932)
“But I go with my friend to the shore of our little river, and with one stroke of the paddle, I leave the village politics and personalities, yes, and the world of villages and personalities behind, and pass into a delicate realm of sunset and moonlight, too bright almost for spotted man to enter without novitiate and probation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own.”
—W.E. (William Ewart)