By Our Staff Correspondent MANGALORE, JAN. 29. The Western Ghats Forum for Conservation of Natural Eco-system and Arohana have accused the Forest Department of altering the eco-system of Western Ghats by taking up several "habitat manipulation activities" in the forests. In a press release issued here, G.N. Ashokvardhana of Arohana and Krishnamohan Prabhu, convener of the forum, warned that the habitat manipulation activities in the Kudremukh National Park would prove harmful to the ecosystem of the rainforests. The Forest Department was building bunds across the streams in the national park, they alleged. It was estimated that over 12,000 metres of bunds were being constructed at various locations in the park across most of the fresh water streams, they said and added that 50,000 metres of bunds and 20 check dams was built by 1999 under the first management plan for the national park, which had submerged vast tracts of forests. Applying water conservation methods, which were evolved for States such as Rajasthan, to the rainforests of the Western Ghats where hundreds of perennial streams originated was unscientific as the rain forests of the Western Ghats had enough moisture and water content in the soil. Any water conservation techniques applied here would only end in an ecological disaster, they said. The department was also planting thousands of saplings in natural grasslands in the national park, which would alter the forest composition, they said. The acacia saplings planted earlier by the department was know to have negatively affected the natural ecosystem by reducing grazing pastures for wild herbivores, Mr. Ashokvardhana and Mr. Prabhu said. Over the years, the national park had emerged as a "living laboratory" for biologists and nature lovers to study the evolution of natural vegetation. But the activities of the Forest Department would disrupt the evolution process of the ecosystem, they added. Ecologists and conservationists had told the department that such habitat manipulation activities were unscientific, unwarranted, and a waste of public money. At a time when there was a severe shortage of funds for protection activity, diverting money for such activities was uncalled for, they said. They appealed to the Government to focus on protection of habitats and take steps for wildlife habitat consolidation and corridor recovery programmes to conserve endangered natural ecosystems.