Kaziranga's Eco-Sensitive Zone: Why the Buffer Width Is Contested
Assam's Chief Minister indicated during a visit to Bokakhat (August 8) that the state will move to fix the Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ) around Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve at a minimum of 1 km, replacing the interim 10 km buffer currently in force.
The state government is expected to send a formal proposal to the Union Government within about two months seeking this reduction, citing a Supreme Court order that it says already specifies a 1 km minimum ESZ.
The government's stated rationale is that a 10 km buffer would restrict the growth of nearby towns such as Kaliabar, Doboka and Jakhalabandha.
Conservationists and wildlife scientists have objected, pointing out that Kaziranga's floodplain ecology depends on animals (rhinos, elephants, deer) moving out of the park to higher ground during annual floods, and that identified wildlife corridors linking Kaziranga to the Karbi Anglong Hills extend well beyond 1 km.
Environmental groups warn that shrinking the ESZ could encourage further stone-mining and construction activity in the highlands adjoining the park, and increase human-wildlife conflict.
Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs)
An Eco-Sensitive Zone is a buffer area notified around a Protected Area (National Park, Wildlife Sanctuary, Tiger Reserve) under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, meant to act as a "shock absorber" regulating land use and development so that activity outside the park's legal boundary does not degrade the core area. ESZs are not additional protected areas but zones of regulated (not prohibited) activity — permitting eco-tourism and non-polluting local livelihoods while restricting mining, major industry and large construction.
Assam is using the 2022 Supreme Court order's "1 km minimum" language to argue for shrinking Kaziranga's buffer, while the still-applicable default (per the 2006 Goa Foundation order) remains 10 km until a site-specific ESZ is formally notified and approved by the Centre. The dispute illustrates that ESZ width is not automatically 1 km everywhere — it must be tailored per site through the 2011 guidelines' scientific process, accounting for local ecology such as Kaziranga's flood-driven wildlife migration.
Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve
Kaziranga, in Assam's Golaghat, Nagaon and Sonitpur districts along the Brahmaputra floodplain, is one of India's most significant conservation landscapes and a key habitat-connectivity case study for UPSC.
The scientific objection to a 1 km ESZ centres on Kaziranga's unique flood-adapted ecology — a generic buffer width that ignores seasonal migration corridors could sever the park's connectivity to the highlands precisely when animals most need it.
- Current interim ESZ around Kaziranga: 10 km (per the 2006 Goa Foundation default).
- Proposed reduced ESZ: 1 km, per the Assam CM's announcement (August 8, 2026).
- Kaziranga core area: approximately 430 sq km; UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.
- Supreme Court's minimum-ESZ order: T.N. Godavarman case, dated 3 June 2022 (modified April 2023).
- MoEFCC ESZ guidelines: issued 9 February 2011.