• Conservation reserves and community reserves are both names for protected areas that usually serve as buffer zones or migration corridors between India’s national parks, animal sanctuaries, and reserved and protected forests.
• These places are called conservation areas if they are uninhabited and fully owned by the Government of India, but they are used for living by communities. If some of the land is privately owned, they are called community areas.
• The Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act of 2002, which changed the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, was the first time that these types of protected areas were used.
• In 2003, changes to the Wildlife Protection Act made it possible for community-led efforts to protect wildlife to be recognised and given formal support.
• It gives a flexible way to protect wildlife without putting the needs of the community at risk.
• These categories were added because private land ownership and land use have made it harder to protect places that are already protected or that are planned to be protected.
• These groups are similar to the protected places in IUCN Categories V (conservation reserves) and VI (community reserves).
Tillari Conservation Reserve
• A 29.53-square-kilometer area of the Dodamarg forest range in Sindhudurg district has been named the “Tillari Conservation Reserve” by the Maharashtra government. (Jul 2020)
Tillari is the seventh wildlife area in the state to be named a ‘conservation reserve’.
Tigers and elephants that move between the three states of Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra use the area of the forest range that includes nine towns as a corridor and even a home.
It links the Mhadei sanctuary in Goa to the Bhimgad sanctuary in Karnataka. It has semi-evergreen forests, tropical moist deciduous forests, and a number of unique trees, butterflies, and flowers.
