26 tribals
In Kawal Tiger Reserve, 26 tribals were arrested after attacking forest officers during an eviction drive in Palagori forest. They had built huts and cleared land for shifting cultivation, felling more than 350 teak trees. The forest was not theirs to take.
Officials confirmed Palagori’s 9,360 acres are recorded forest land, legally part of Kawal Tiger Reserve and vital to tiger corridors in Telangana. Yet villagers from Sirpur, Jainoor, and Lingapur mandals insisted on ancestral rights. The truth: once forest is cut, it is gone. Tigers cannot adjust to vanished habitat; people can relocate, forests cannot.
All 26 were remanded to judicial custody for 14 days. Officers warned the land must be vacated or further action will follow. This case shows the wider pattern: human claims push into reserves while enforcement struggles to hold the line. Protecting tiger corridors is not optional. Without strict defense of forests, extinction comes not from poachers, but from settlements with axes.
The 26 tribals article:
Based on Hindustan Times, India.
Photo via Hyderabad Mail.
