Sustainable management of Forest ecosystem is necessary as it serves the important functions such as supplementing human dietary requirements, ecological significance in terms of biodiversity conservation, flood control, water purifica-tion and micro climate regulation etc. Hence, an inventory of reserve forest in a given area is a pre-requisite for their con-servation and management. The present study is focused on RS and GIS based assessment of forest encroachment in Shimoga district of Karnataka for the years 1990, 2000 and 2010 using Landsat TM/MSS/ETM+ for 1990 and 2000, and IRS P6 LISS III for the year 2010. It’s located in the mid south western part of malnad region of Karnataka state, geographically lies between 13°27' and 14°39' N latitudes and 74°38' and 76°4'E longitudes. It covers an area of 8,482.32 km2 a apart of western ghats areas (Sahayadrihill ranges), the densely forested high hilly Malnad in the west and sparsely forested tablelands semi-malnad in the east of Karnataka state with a forest area constituting 32.66% of the total geographical area of the district. The study revealed that the encroachment in reserve forest area accounts for 282.92 km2, 257.27 km2 and 192.43 km2 for the year 2010, 2000 and 1990 respectively. Extension of cultivation is the major cause of large-scale encroachment in the district. There is no proper demarcation of the forest boundaries in some places. This has also resulted in encroachment of for-est land. It has led to forest fragmentation, loss of habitat and corridor for movement of wild animals, etc. The policy mak-ers and judiciary have stressed the need for use of recent satellite data to assess the forest encroachment in Western Ghats region. In this regard, an attempt has been made to study the two decadal forest encroachment patterns of Shimoga district. The extent of encroachment was observed to be 12.13 % in 2010. Encroachment is more prevalent in the moist and dry deciduous forests than the evergreen forests and is seen increasing day by day. This information will help for frontline forest officials to trace and book forest offences occurring in their jurisdiction and also to prevent encroachments....
Authors: Hemanjali, A.M., Pramod Kumar, G.R., Somashekar, R.K. and Nagaraja, B. C.