Abstract
Human interference and its effects in Sujalkuttai – Bannari Corridor and Kallar – Vedar Colony Corridor in Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve have been studied from December 1994 to April 1995. Most people visit the corridors primarily for fuel-wood collection, some of them for grazing livestock and few for collecting minor forest produce. Female population depend on the corridors for fuel-wood, while the male population use the corridor predominantly for grazing their livestock, temporal use of the corridors by local people for fuel-wood collection and grazing considerably varies. In both the corridors fuel-wood is extracted mostly from hill slopes and other inaccessible areas to elephants. Local people move more than 3 km from the villages in the Sujalkuttai-Bannari Corridor for fuel-wood while the elephant population use the forests up to 2 km distance from villages, and thus there is an overlap in the habitat use by man and elephants. In both the corridors the elephants do prefer many of the plant species which are largely collected by villagers as fuel-wood.
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