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Odisha’s Bauxite Mining Threatens Endangered Jeypore Ground Gecko
An open-cast bauxite mining project across forest in the Nageswari Reserve Forest (Balda Hills) in Odisha’s Koraput district poses an existential threat to the Jeypore ground gecko. The mining has triggered opposition from conservationists and local Bondo and Porja Adivasi communities protesting to protect ancestral forest rights.
Jeypore Ground Gecko:
| Dimension | Key Details |
|---|---|
| Scientific name | Scientific name comprises Cyrtodactylus jeyporensis. |
| Common names | Common names comprise Jeypore Ground Gecko and Patinghe Indian Gecko. |
| Family | Taxonomic family comprises Gekkonidae. |
| Endemism and distribution | Distribution comprises India’s Eastern Ghats, especially parts of southern Odisha and northern Andhra Pradesh. |
| Habitat | Habitat comprises moist, high-elevation forest patches, often beneath rocks and boulders. |
| Elevation | Elevation in reported records comprises around 1,100-1,400 metres. |
| IUCN status | Conservation status comprises IUCN Red List: Endangered (EN). |
| CITES status | International trade regulation comprises listing in CITES Appendix II in 2022. |
| Indian legal protection | Statutory protection comprises inclusion in Schedule I under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. |
| Protected area gap | Protected area coverage comprises the species’ known habitat falling almost entirely outside designated National Parks or Wildlife Sanctuaries. |
| Field survey finding | Field surveys have documented only 4 individual geckos in the Balda hills over the past year. |
| Local opposition | Opposition comprises conservationists and local Bondo and Porja Adivasi communities protesting to protect ancestral forest rights. |
| Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 reference | Protests have continued for 2 years against Nageswari forest land clearance, citing violations of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, and threat to perennial water sources. |
| Bauxite deposit setting | Bauxite deposits in the Eastern Ghats comprise caps on high plateaus. |
| Mining impact mechanism | Strip mining mandates completely removing vegetation, rock boulders, and topsoil, permanently destroying cool, shaded leaf-litter micro-habitats essential for ground-dwelling geckos. |
| Reference example | A similar bauxite extraction project by NALCO in nearby Potangi (Koraput) has previously destroyed the gecko’s micro-habitat, leading to local extinction of the species in that belt. |
| Taxonomic record | Taxonomic record comprises original description in 1878 by Richard Henry Beddome, and rediscovery in 2010 by Ishan Agarwal and Aniruddha Datta-Roy in the high-elevation forests of Koraput. |
| Evolutionary timeline | Evolutionary studies comprise the lineage diverging from its closest relatives over 20 million years ago. |