NEW DELHI: India's Goa state is hopeful that forests home to a rare species of bats will be included as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The forest department, in its draft letter to global cultural body, has said rare “Wroughton's free-tailed bats have been recorded in this contiguous region, which is already declared protected.” The only known roosting site of this bat is located just outside the boundary of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, a 208.48 kilometer squared protected area in the Indian state of Goa in the Western Ghats of South India, the department said. Additional principal chief conservator of forest Richard D'Souza, who drafted the letter said that “till date, the range of this bat is not known and it is almost certain that it falls inside the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary.” In July 2012, the Western Ghats along with 39 serial sites spread across the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala got inscribed as world heritage sites by UNESCO. However, the Western Ghats were not included in the UNESCO's list. The state forest department has said although Goa is the smallest state through which the Western Ghats pass, its forests are vital to maintain the contiguity of the northern and southern stretches of the ghats. “The letter, which will be discussed with Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar before being submitted to UNESCO, has also sought declaration of Goa forests as ‘Tiger Habitat',” D'Souza said. “The presence of tigers in recent years indicates that these protected and contiguous forests of Maharashtra and Karnataka are one of the best potential tiger habitats in the Western Ghats,” he said in the letter. The department has said “although the elevation of most of the peaks of Goa's stretch of Western Ghats are barely 800-1,000 kilometers above mean sea level, the species diversity and density in core areas is relatively high.”
