Forest Fragmentation Analysis in Part of Kalsubai Harishchandragad Wildlife Sanctuary of Northern Western Ghats, Maharashtra

Abstract

The Western Ghats is rich in a variety of flora, fauna and specifically about its endemism. The uncontrolled human interference in the area created the problems that leads to environmental degradation. In the Western Ghats, changing land-use patterns caused forest fragmentation, habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, loss of movement corridor for the wildlife and it became a primary concern for sustainabilityof biodiversity. To understand the forest fragmentation in the study area, the research work attempts to developed forest fragmentation analysis for the year of 1991 to 2020 using the Landscape Fragmentation Tool (LFT). The result revealed that from 1991 to 2020, non-forest types like water bodies, agriculture land, barren land, scrubland and settlement has been increased by 3.71% (834 ha), 3.36% (755 ha), 2.22% (499 ha), 1.92% (433 ha), and 0.08% (18 ha) . Fragmentation analysis reveals increasing edges by 3.14% (707 ha) and a respectively decrease in the core forest by 6.12% (1376 ha). The result shows that forests are becoming more fragmented and isolated during a period of last three decades. This help to understand and conserve the forest environments.