According to Man Bahadur Khadka, officer at the district forest office, 535 hectares of land has been encroached at 24 places in the Basanta bio corridor and 3,065 freed Kamaiyas have settled there.
Places like Sapana of Pawera VDC, Rampur and Bipatpur of Ratanpur VDC, Himmatpur and Shiradhani of Lalbojhi VDC, Bhuruwa of Khailaad VDC, Dangpur and Siddhababa Community Forest in Rajuwapur of Bhajani VDC, Pashupati Community Forest and Maunyal Community Forest have been encroached in this fashion.
Similarly, Batuleshwor of Ramshikharbhala VDC, Akhauya in Pahalbaanpur VDC, Andaiya, Shivashakti Community Forest and Chamaripuri in Masuriya VDC, Betalwasti, Bhagatpur and the range post in Udasipur VDC, Banjariya in Joshipur VDC and Jhaartal in Basauti VDC have been encroached.
The Kamaiyas were under the impression that they would get whatever land they settled in and this has caused a problem, according to Khadka. He says the Kamaiyas could be given better settlement sites at places other than the Basanta bio corridor.
Endangered species like tiger, blue bull, deer, bear, leopard and even elephants are found in the bio corridor. Valuable trees like saal, asana, jaamun, khayar and sisame are also to be found there.
The total area of Kailali includes some 200,000 hectares of forest. Though the Kamaiyas could be given better land for settlement, the government and the political parties have not paid much attention to this.
According to Yagya Bastola, representative of the Free Kamaiya Rehabilitation Committee of the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist, they are concerned about bio corridor conservation. A few hectares of land for the Kamaiyas would not make much difference. But they could be given much better land elsewhere than in the bio corridor.
Kailali also been working to preserve biodiversity since 2001. Though the government has proclaimed the emancipation of the Kamaiyas, it has not been able to rehabilitate them and so they have encroached land at various places.
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