Mains Ready By December. Smash Mains & Smash PYQ Admissions Open
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

Type: National Parks/WS

  • Can wildlife thrive in India without active human intervention?

    Why in the News

    A tigress released into the Buxa Tiger Reserve in West Bengal has begun a phased programme to build a self sustaining tiger population there. It follows Project Cheetah‘s reintroduction of cheetahs in Madhya Pradesh in 2022. Two conservation scientists now debate whether India’s wildlife can thrive without active human intervention.

    What is active intervention, and why is it needed now?

    1. What it is: Active intervention means people directly manage a species through captive breeding or reintroduction, like an intensive care unit for a species that cannot recover by itself.
    2. Why it is needed: Human activity has altered natural systems, so some species now need ‘active management’ to escape extinction.
    3. Uncertain results: The Mauritius kestrel recovered after reintroduction, but other programmes had mixed or disappointing results.
    4. Too late for some: Captive breeding is costly. The saola of the Annamite Mountains (Vietnam and Laos) may be too few to breed, so its genome (genetic code) may be its main record.
    5. The takeaway: Intervention can rescue a species near the edge, but it is costly and uncertain, so it cannot replace a living habitat.

    Is conservation a luxury of rich countries?

    1. Backhanded compliment: The Economist praised India for conserving tigers as a relatively poor country, implying conservation suits rich countries. The praise drew a backlash in India.
    2. Colonial rupture: Pre British India’s agrarian, forest based economy lived alongside wildlife. Colonial technology, farm expansion and a belief in overpowering nature caused heavy wildlife loss and stripped forest dwellers of rights.
    3. Poorer countries that conserve: Costa Rica, Brazil, Rwanda and Colombia made conservation part of development, and Costa Rica earns revenue from biodiversity tourism.
    4. Roots of the movement: Western conservation drew on The Population Bomb and Silent Spring. Its science grew in the 1980s around the minimum viable population, the smallest population that can survive long term.

    Does protecting the tiger protect the wider ecosystem?

    1. Safari park warning: Project Tiger was launched in the 1970s with a warning against turning national parks into safari parks for tourists, a tendency now growing.
    2. Surveys beyond tigers: Tiger surveys cover nearly four lakh sq km, four times the one lakh sq km tigers occupy, so they guide decisions across biogeographic regions, zones with distinct wildlife.
    3. Flagship pull: A flagship species is a popular animal, like the tiger, that draws attention and funds. A rare frog threatened by a mine in Maharashtra draws little.
    4. Limits of the flagship: Habitats hold distinct species, so tiger protection does not help every ecosystem. Wolves better represent grasslands and human dominated landscapes.

    Why do fenced reserves fail some species?

    1. Landscape species: Wolves and the Great Indian Bustard range across open country, so protected areas and fenced enclosures alone cannot hold them.
    2. Bustard sanctuaries: Sanctuaries in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh failed because planning ignored grazing and local needs. Blackbuck then multiplied and damaged crops, turning once tolerant farmers against the birds.
    3. Floods as habitat: Periodic floods sustain Terai landscapes such as Kaziranga, Dudhwa and Valmiki. People want floods prevented, a trade off conservation must manage.
    4. Small reserves: India’s protected areas are small and cover little of its land. Larger landscapes act as insurance against risks science cannot yet foresee.

    Challenges

    1. Funding gap: India spends about ₹3,500 crore a year on conservation, roughly a third of its need, leaving protected areas outside tiger reserves short.
    2. Punitive wildlife law: The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 treats research sampling like hunting, and two decades of reform attempts have failed to change it.
    3. Missing data: India lacks basic data on insect abundance, so it cannot tell whether insects are declining.
    4. Uneven management: Forest management built in the colonial era barely reaches the Himalayas, deserts and the Northeast.

    Way Forward

    1. Research friendly law: Amend the Wildlife (Protection) Act so research sampling is not treated as hunting, opening permits to researchers without institutional privilege.
    2. Community landscape plans: Plan bustard and wolf habitats around grazing and local people, not fences.
    3. Fund every protected area: Extend funding beyond tiger reserves.
    4. Learn from breeding programmes: Treat Great Indian Bustard captive breeding as an experiment, and study the unexpected behaviour seen in vulture reintroductions.

    Conclusion

    India is moving from guarding reserves to managing species directly, but rescue cannot replace habitat shared with people. Larger landscapes, community support and adequate money will decide whether intervention saves species or only displays them.

    Key numbers

    1. Conservation funding need: ₹9,500 crore to ₹10,000 crore a year.
    2. Protected areas: about 5% of India’s land; average size about 200 sq km.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2024] Consider the following statements: Statement-I: The Indian Flying Fox is placed under the “vermin” category in the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. Statement-II: The Indian Flying Fox feeds on the blood of other animals. Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements? (a) Both statement I and Statement II are correct and statement II explains statement I (b) Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct, but Statement-II does not explain Statement-I (c) Staement- I is correct , but Statement II is incorrect* (d) Statement-I is incorrect, but Statement-II is correct ANSWER:”

  • GPS study aims to reduce human-animal conflicts in Assam

    GPS study aims to reduce human-animal conflicts in Assam

    Why in the News

    Assam has moved from a major knowledge gap on where its wild elephants go to a five-year satellite-tracked map of how they move through forests, tea plantations, farmland and riverine habitats. The Assam Forest Department and World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-India) released the study during the 72nd Wildlife Week to guide habitat protection and reduce human-elephant conflict.

    What did the tracking study do?

    1. GPS satellite tracking: Collars fitted on wild elephants record their position through the Global Positioning System (GPS), much like a phone sharing its live location. Researchers then map where and when the animals move.
    2. Who was tracked: Four female-led herds and a solitary male were followed in Udalguri, Sonitpur and Biswanath, three high-conflict districts on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra.
    3. Scale of data: Over five years, tracking generated more than 38,000 GPS locations across multi-use landscapes, areas shared by forests, farms and plantations.
    4. The report: The findings appear in ‘Tracking the Giants: Movement and Habitat-Use Patterns of GPS-Collared Elephants in Assam’.
    5. The takeaway: Assam now has baseline information on where elephant ranging overlaps human land use, the exact zone where conflict arises, so prevention can be targeted there.

    What did the elephants’ movements reveal?

    1. Core habitats: Sonai-Rupai, Behali and Bornadi Wildlife Sanctuaries were used extensively. Protected areas and reserve forests stayed important elephant habitat for much of the year.
    2. Tea plantations as pathways: Elephants used tea plantations as movement pathways and secondary habitats, places to pass through and stay outside forests, which often brought them close to people.
    3. Paddy season expansion: Herds showed a strong seasonal pattern. The home ranges of female-led herds expanded during the paddy cropping season, a period of high human-elephant conflict.

    Why does Assam need this map?

    1. Conflict toll: Human-elephant conflict has killed 1,147 people and 246 elephants in Assam over the past decade, the State’s Forest Minister told the Assembly.
    2. Elephant stronghold: The 2025 Synchronised All India Elephant Census found Assam to be the northeast’s stronghold of Asian elephants, with about 4,149 animals.
    3. Planning uses: The Minister said the study will guide conservation planning, wildlife-friendly infrastructure and safer coexistence between people and wildlife.
    4. What conflict management needs: WWF-India’s elephant programme said preventing conflict requires knowing where elephants move, which habitats and land they use, and how this shifts across seasons.

    Challenges

    1. Small sample: Five tracked groups in three districts cannot capture elephant behaviour across the whole State.
    2. Working landscapes: Tea estates double as elephant pathways and workplaces, so daily contact between people and elephants is built into the landscape.
    3. Crop losses and retaliation: Herds range widest when paddy is in the field, and crop losses push farmers towards illegal electric fencing and poisoning.
    4. Data to action gap: A movement map changes nothing on the ground until it shapes fences, roads and land-use decisions.

    Way Forward

    1. Secure mapped pathways: Protect the sanctuary and tea-garden routes the study mapped, treating them as elephant corridors.
    2. Seasonal early warning: Use tracking data to send alerts to villages near herd routes during the paddy season.
    3. Wildlife-sensitive development: Fold movement data into road, rail and zoning decisions before projects are approved.
    4. Faster compensation: Pay crop and life losses quickly and transparently through direct benefit transfer, so tolerance for elephants does not erode.

    Conclusion

    Assam now knows where its elephants go and when, which lets conflict management move from reacting to raids to planning for them. The test is whether the State turns these maps into protected pathways and seasonal warnings before the next paddy season.

    Back2Basics: Asian elephant

    1. Conservation status: Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, and listed in Appendix I of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).
    2. India’s share: India holds the largest wild Asian elephant population, about 60% of the global total by the 2017 census.
    3. Range States: Karnataka has the highest population, followed by Assam and Kerala.
    4. Project Elephant (1992): The central scheme protects elephant habitats and corridors, to reduce crop damage and accidental deaths.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026] Which of the following statements with regard to the arrival of Amur Falcons at Doyang Lake in Nagaland each year from Mongolia is/are correct? 1. It showcases how sustained local conservation efforts can contribute to the arrival and protection of international migratory birds. 2. It reflects the global success of advanced tracking technologies that guide migratory birds back to their stopover sites. 3. It confirms that Amur Falcons have adapted to permanent residency in India due to favourable habitat changes. (a) 1 only (b) 1 and 2 (c) 2 and 3 (d) 3 only ANSWER: A”

  • Bird islands

    Why in the News

    Two male Great Indian Bustards have been released into the wild at the Desert National Park in Jaisalmer, under a conservation plan that now holds 97 birds. It is a rare gain for a species of about 120, but India still protects single species in enclosed pockets rather than whole landscapes.

    What is the Great Indian Bustard programme, and why was it needed?

    1. What the programme does: The Great Indian Bustard (‘Godawan’) is a heavy Rajasthan grassland bird. The plan breeds it in captivity for release, like a nursery raising saplings.
    2. National bird debate: Salim Ali wanted it named the national bird so that protection would follow. The Indian Board for Wildlife chose the peacock.
    3. Why it was needed: The bird numbered about 1,260 in 1969 and has been close to extinction for nearly half a century, pushed down by:
      • hunting, royal hunts included, into the late 1970s;
      • irrigation, turning grasslands once dismissed as ‘wastelands’ into pesticide-soaked fields and roads;
      • power lines, the most recent threat.
    4. The takeaway: Captive breeding can lift numbers, but it does not undo the habitat loss that caused the decline.

    What has the breeding plan achieved?

    1. Captive-bred stock: 57 birds in the plan are captive-bred, and nine more await release.
    2. Breeding output: The captive-bred birds produced 29 chicks this year, up from 24 last year.
    3. Ceremony: The Union and Rajasthan Environment Ministers attended a release marked by “considerable bureaucratic pomp”.

    Why were power-line protections narrowed?

    1. Collision risk: The heavy, poor-sighted bustard flies at the height of high-tension lines, so wires in its path endanger it.
    2. Supreme Court order, 2021: The Supreme Court ordered that low-voltage lines in the bird’s priority habitats be laid underground.
    3. Modified order: Renewable energy companies objected that undergrounding raised the cost of solar power. The Court then limited the order to lines in the bird’s narrower ‘critical’ habitat.

    Why is species-by-species conservation falling short?

    1. Neglected birds: The Godawan now features in government and private marketing, but most get no such attention. Nearly 1,256 bird species, about 11.5% of the world’s total, are threatened.
    2. Common birds in decline: Skylark numbers have fallen nearly 80% in 12 years.
    3. ‘Captive to symbolism’: India’s policy favours showcase moves over habitats:
      • a tigress from Valmiki flown to Buxa;
      • African cheetahs kept in enclosures;
      • Gir’s lions confined to Saurashtra and straying into villages;
      • the Delhi Ridge planted with peepal and banyan unsuited to its dry ecology.
    4. Islands of protection: Policy praises coexistence of people and wildlife on paper. In practice it builds isolated, walled African-style reserves that keep animals apart from people.
    5. Overflow into farms: Animals thriving inside walls spill into villages and fields, as elephants show. So landscapes, not species, should be the unit of conservation.

    Challenges

    1. Partial line protection: Undergrounding only in critical habitat leaves birds exposed wherever they fly beyond it.
    2. Grasslands undervalued: Open grasslands are treated as unproductive land, so they are easily diverted to farms and solar parks.
    3. Small founder pool: A flock bred from few birds risks low genetic diversity and poor survival after release.
    4. Flagship bias: Declines in common birds draw little policy attention compared with flagship species.

    Way Forward

    1. Bird diverters: Power utilities should fit bird diverters (reflective markers that make wires visible) across the bustard’s wider range.
    2. Grassland reserves: Rajasthan should notify key grasslands as conservation reserves under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
    3. Landscape plans: The Union Environment Ministry should plan conservation across protected areas, farmland and corridors, with village participation.
    4. Bird monitoring: Fund regular national surveys of common birds so declines are caught early.

    Conclusion

    India can now breed a near-extinct bird in captivity but has not secured the open landscapes it needs. Whether the bustard’s wider range is shielded from power lines and land conversion will show if conservation moves beyond showcase releases.

    Key numbers

    1. Bustard decline: 600 birds by 2000.
    2. Rajasthan count: 140 to 175 birds by the 2010s.
    3. Indian roller decline: about 30% in 12 years.

    Back2Basics: Great Indian Bustard

    1. Threat status: Listed as Critically Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
    2. Legal cover: Protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
    3. State bird: It is the State bird of Rajasthan.
    4. Range: Most survivors live in Rajasthan’s Thar Desert, with a few in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2023] Consider the following statements: 1. In India, the Biodiversity Management Committees are key to the realization of the objectives of the Nagoya Protocol. 2. The Biodiversity Management Committees have important functions in determining acces and benefit sharing, including the power to levy collection fees on the access of biological resources within its jurisdiction. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 ANSWER: (c)”

  • 2 captive-bred Great Indian Bustards released in national park

    Why in the News

    For the first time, Great Indian Bustards (GIBs) bred in captivity have been returned to the wild, as conservation moves from raising birds in enclosures to rewilding them. The Union Environment Minister and Wildlife Institute of India (WII) scientists released two males into Desert National Park, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, under Project GIB. Only about 150 GIBs are left in the wild.

    What is Project GIB, and why breed the bird in captivity?

    1. What it is: Project GIB is a long-term recovery programme for the critically endangered GIB. It runs two conservation breeding centres in Jaisalmer, at Ramdevra and Sam.
    2. Why it began: The wild population kept falling, so the centres raise a founder population, a starter stock for rewilding. It works like a seed bank kept for replanting a forest.
    3. How breeding works: From 2019, eggs collected from the wild were incubated artificially and the chicks hand-reared. These hand-reared birds later mated in captivity.
    4. Habitat restoration: The Rajasthan forest department has fenced about 200 sq km of grassland enclosures inside the park. WII has tracked tagged birds remotely for years (telemetry), and this data identifies the enclosures as prime breeding habitat.
    5. The takeaway: Captive breeding matters only if the birds survive in the wild, which this first release begins to test.

    What has the release achieved?

    1. First rewilding: Two male birds were released at Sam, the first of 11 birds earmarked for release.
    2. Captive stock: The centres hold 98 captive-bred birds, about 86 of them kept for captive reproduction.
    3. Breeding output: Captive reproduction yields more live chicks each year, with 29 born in 2026 against 24 in 2025.
    4. Reintroduction protocols: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change says the release will help develop and refine protocols for returning captive-bred birds to natural habitat.

    Why does the GIB matter beyond the species?

    1. Grassland conservation: The GIB depends on open grassland, so protecting it protects an ecosystem often treated as wasteland. The Minister also linked it to land degradation neutrality, a goal where restored land offsets newly degraded land.
    2. Migratory stopover: GIB habitat is a resting stop for birds on the Central Asian Flyway. This migratory corridor crosses 30 countries from North to South Asia, linking the Arctic and Indian Oceans.

    Challenges

    1. Power line collisions: GIBs have poor frontal vision and fly into overhead transmission lines. Eg. The Supreme Court has heard cases on undergrounding lines in GIB habitat since 2021.
    2. Untested survival: Hand-reared birds have not learned predator avoidance or foraging from wild parents, so post-release survival is unknown.
    3. Narrow genetic base: A tiny wild population limits the genetic diversity of the founder stock.
    4. Grassland diversion: Open grasslands are converted to farming and renewable energy parks. Eg. Solar and wind projects in the Thar.

    Way Forward

    1. Post-release tracking: WII should tag every released bird and publish survival data before scaling up releases.
    2. Line mitigation: Power utilities should underground lines or fit bird diverters in priority GIB habitat.
    3. Grassland recognition: Rajasthan should record grasslands as ecosystems, not wasteland, in land records.
    4. Phased releases: Release the remaining earmarked birds in stages, adjusting protocols after each cohort.

    Conclusion

    Project GIB has moved from breeding numbers to the harder test of survival in the wild. Whether the released males survive, settle in the fenced enclosures and pair with wild birds is the metric to watch.

    Back2Basics: Great Indian Bustard

    1. Protection status: Critically Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and listed in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
    2. Identity: One of the heaviest flying birds, known locally as Godawan, and the State bird of Rajasthan.
    3. Habitat: Dry grasslands and scrub, with the largest population in Rajasthan, mainly in Desert National Park.
    4. Threats: Overhead power lines, windmills, noise and changes in landscape and cultivation.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2024] Consider the following statements: Statement-I: The Indian Flying Fox is placed under the “vermin” category in the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. Statement-II: The Indian Flying Fox feeds on the blood of other animals. Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements? (a) Both statement I and Statement II are correct and statement II explains statement I (b) Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct, but Statement-II does not explain Statement-I (c) Staement- I is correct , but Statement II is incorrect* (d) Statement-I is incorrect, but Statement-II is correct ANSWER:”

  • Rescue act

    Why in the News

    Tiger conservation in West Bengal has shifted from protecting a resident population to rebuilding one from nothing, as a royal Bengal tigress caught in Bihar becomes the first tiger reintroduced in the State, in Buxa Tiger Reserve. The step has been called “a triumph of bureaucracy, not ecology”, because the State acted only after its tigers had vanished.

    What is the Buxa reintroduction programme?

    1. What it is: Reintroduction means moving animals from a healthy population into a habitat that has lost them, much like restocking an empty shelf.
    2. Why it began: The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) found no tigers in the Buxa, Dampa and Palamau reserves by 2018. It proposed a programme with the Bengal Forest Department and the Wildlife Institute of India.
    3. Scale of the plan: The tigress is the first of seven tigers to be relocated to Buxa over two years.
    4. Habitat preparation: Since 2018 the partners have reintroduced chital (spotted deer), opened some forest canopy to revive grasslands, and moved villagers out of the reserve’s core to cut human wildlife conflict.
    5. The takeaway: Bringing tigers back is technically possible, but it does not by itself remove the pressures that emptied the reserve.

    Why did Buxa lose its tigers?

    1. Human settlement: Buxa is dotted with settlements and ringed by revenue villages and tea estates, which fragment the landscape, including migration corridors, the routes animals use to move between forests.
    2. Railway line: A railway line already threatens the region’s elephants, and the railways plan to restore a route to Jainti.
    3. Road traffic: Commercial traffic on the Bhutan to West Bengal road through Buxa disturbs the reserve.
    4. Closed canopy: Forests have grown into dense woodland with a closed canopy, which stifles grasses, so herbivore numbers dwindle.
    5. Prey collapse: Chital density is dismal, so goats, macaques and cattle now replace tigers’ preferred ungulates (hoofed prey).

    Is reintroduction conservation or rescue?

    1. Preventive model: From 1973 India followed preventive conservation, protecting source populations, the healthy groups that breed and supply tigers, with their habitats, prey and corridors.
    2. Reactive tradition: Buxa belongs to a newer, reactive tradition, alongside Sariska and Panna, where authorities intervened only after tiger populations crashed.
    3. Cost of rescue: Reintroduction showcases technical capability but is more expensive and more heavy handed than prevention.
    4. Inviolate core belief: Reintroduction follows Project Tiger’s belief that core habitat must be inviolate, meaning free of people. The state has used this to override the rights of Adivasis and forest dwellers and disrupt ecotourism incomes.

    What would success at Buxa look like?

    1. Transboundary corridor: Buxa is part of an international wildlife corridor contiguous with Phibsoo in Bhutan to the north and Manas in Assam to the east.
    2. Dispersal risk: If those forests offer more prey or less disturbance, released tigers may leave Buxa.
    3. Breeding test: Success means tigers establish territories and produce cubs that survive and breed, with natural immigration, tigers arriving on their own from nearby forests, keeping genetic diversity.
    4. Advance, not rescue: Success also means monitoring ecological deterioration so the state acts before tigers vanish, and involving local communities in decisions on conflict and livelihoods.

    Challenges

    1. Conflict after release: Tigers straying into tea estates and villages can turn local opinion against the programme. Eg. Tigress Avni was shot in Maharashtra in 2018.
    2. Poaching pressure: A small founder group can be wiped out quickly. Eg. Panna lost all its tigers by 2009.
    3. Rights conflicts: Relocation must be voluntary under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, so coercion invites legal challenge.

    Way Forward

    1. Prey before predators: The State Forest Department should raise chital density through grassland management before further releases.
    2. Rail mitigation: The railways should fix speed limits and build animal underpasses on forest stretches.
    3. Community dividend: Route ecotourism revenue to fringe villages through eco development committees.

    Conclusion

    Buxa’s first tigress restores a species but not yet the conditions that lost it. Whether tiger conservation moves from rescuing reserves after collapse to watching for decline early, with forest communities as partners, remains unresolved.

    Back2Basics: National Tiger Conservation Authority

    1. About: A statutory body under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, created through a 2006 amendment, under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
    2. Chair and role: Chaired by the Union Environment Minister, it approves State tiger conservation plans and sets norms for tiger reserves.
    3. Project Tiger: It runs Project Tiger, which manages reserves through a core and buffer design.
    4. Tiger census: It conducts the All India Tiger Estimation every four years.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2024] Consider the following statements: Statement-I: The Indian Flying Fox is placed under the “vermin” category in the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. Statement-II: The Indian Flying Fox feeds on the blood of other animals. Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements? (a) Both statement I and Statement II are correct and statement II explains statement I (b) Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct, but Statement-II does not explain Statement-I (c) Staement- I is correct , but Statement II is incorrect* (d) Statement-I is incorrect, but Statement-II is correct Answer:”

  • Zones of worry

    Why in the News

    The seventh draft notification for an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) in the Kerala stretch of the Western Ghats proposes to bring 9,993.7 sq km across 131 villages under the regime. The Kerala government will reiterate a counter position confining the area to 8,590.69 sq km across 98 villages, excluding human habitations and agricultural land. The first draft, based on the report of the High Level Working Group, covered 123 revenue villages and was never finalised, and six further drafts have followed without settling the dispute. The window for filing objections to the seventh draft closed on 25 September. The disagreement is no longer about whether the Ghats need protection. It is about whether an ecologically sensitive line is drawn around ecology or around land use.

    What does the Ecologically Sensitive Area regime restrict?

    1. Purpose of the designation: Those framing the proposals state that the notification is intended to regulate activities that can damage fragile ecosystems, rather than to remove human presence from the landscape.
    2. What the draft prohibits: Mining, quarrying and sand mining are barred in the notified areas.
    3. What the draft leaves untouched: There are no restrictions on the repair, extension or renovation of existing residential houses, or on changes in ownership of land.
    4. The basis of the classification: The zonation rests on ecological sensitivity, the approach proposed by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel.

    How far apart are the Centre’s draft and Kerala’s counter position?

    1. The area proposed: The seventh draft, issued on 27 July, covers 9,993.7 sq km across 131 villages in Kerala.
    2. The forest and non forest split: Of that area, 9,107 sq km is forest and 886.7 sq km is non forest.
    3. The State’s figure: Kerala will press for 8,590.69 sq km across 98 villages, with the ecologically sensitive areas confined to forests and leased forest plantations.
    4. The principle behind the State’s figure: Kerala argues that inhabited and cultivated landscapes should not be treated in the same manner as forests and other ecologically fragile areas. The demand reflects a position held by successive State governments across the political divide.

    Why do high range residents read the notification as a threat to their land?

    1. Origin of the settlements: The Grow More Food campaign of the erstwhile Travancore administration in the early 1940s encouraged migration into the high ranges. Families moved in to farm, and habitations turned large stretches of the mountains into agricultural landscapes.
    2. Damage done by uncertainty rather than by rules: After 2013 people began cutting down trees for fear they would not be able to use their land later. Farmlands were abandoned and land prices fell.
    3. Effects already visible: The Melukavu panchayat president in Kottayam says the issue has affected access to loans and land transactions, and has told on the marriage prospects of young people in the region.
    4. The ecological rationale questioned: The president of the Rubber Producers’ Society at Edamaruku in Kottayam points out that the nearest forests lie about 30 km to the north and about 50 km to the south of the village proposed for inclusion.
    5. The jurisdictional fear: The chairperson of the Kerala Independent Farmers Association argues that inclusion takes a holding out of the jurisdiction of the State Revenue department and places it with the Central regime, so residents would have to seek Central clearance for almost every activity. The proposal in that reading creates two categories of residents, those inside the ESAs and those outside.

    How did the Gadgil report and the Kasturirangan review set the terms of the dispute?

    1. The original proposal: The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, chaired by Madhav Gadgil, proposed a comprehensive zonation of the Ghats based on ecological sensitivity.
    2. How it was received in the high ranges: The report generated fears that agriculture and development would be restricted, and that existing settlements could eventually face displacement.
    3. The review that followed: The Centre appointed a High Level Working Group chaired by K. Kasturirangan to review the Gadgil recommendations. Environmentalists hold that the group watered down the restrictions.
    4. The first draft and the stalemate after it: The first draft notification, based on the High Level Working Group report, proposed 123 revenue villages in Kerala, mainly in Idukki and Wayanad. Protests prevented a final notification and six more drafts followed.
    5. The State’s own committee: A committee appointed by the State government under Oommen V. Oommen recommended excluding inhabited areas, plantations and agricultural lands through physical verification and field surveys. It also proposed re fixing the ecologically sensitive areas using cadastral maps, which are plot level land records, approved by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board.

    What have conservationists and the panel’s own members said in reply?

    1. The fears called propaganda: The president of the Wayanad Prakruthi Samrakshana Samiti says apprehensions of restrictions on building houses and digging wells are baseless political propaganda pushed by vested interest groups.
    2. Existing law already protects forests: The same view holds that a host of laws, including the Forest Act and the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, already protect forests, so classifying forest areas as ESAs adds nothing.
    3. What the Gadgil report asked for: A member of the panel states that the report recommended a shift to organic farming and never opposed farming. It opposed the pollution of water resources through chemical pesticides, called for non polluting industries, and placed no restrictions on local infrastructure development.
    4. Who was to decide: The panel’s approach was to give local communities a decisive role in determining how development should proceed in ecologically sensitive landscapes, in place of a blanket ban on local activity.
    5. The latest draft already concedes ground: The chairman of the State appointed committee notes that the current draft has excluded farmlands and plantations from the ESAs, which leaves the objection directed at fragile rocky land the high range communities do not own.

    How has the dispute reshaped mobilisation and politics in the high ranges?

    1. Idukki as the epicentre: Fifty one villages in Idukki figure in the latest draft, and all the grama sabhas there have passed resolutions urging the Union and State governments to exclude their villages from the regime.
    2. An organised church led agitation: The Idukki Diocese of the Syro Malabar Church has been at the forefront of the anti ESA agitation since 2013, and the High Range Samrakshana Samiti under its patronage has organised protests across the high ranges. The Church’s position is that human habitations and farmlands must be fully excluded.
    3. The electoral consequence: In the 2014 Lok Sabha election the Samiti’s legal adviser, standing as an Independent backed by the Left Democratic Front (LDF), won the Idukki seat, long considered a Congress citadel.
    4. The heritage listing drawn in: The State vice president of the All India Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ wing of the Communist Party of India, has demanded that the Western Ghats be removed from UNESCO World Heritage Site status, which requires more stringent conservation. The counter cited is that UNESCO guidelines themselves require exclusion of an area where a project disrupts the livelihood or daily life of the local population.

    Can protection and settlement be mapped on the same hills?

    1. The question conservationists are asking: For conservationists the central issue is whether human activity in the Western Ghats can continue without weakening ecological safeguards.
    2. The question residents are asking: For residents the distinction between forest and settlement is critical, because their houses, farms and livelihoods are embedded in the same landscape that conservation policy seeks to protect.
    3. The same hills read two ways: The same slopes are treated as a fragile ecological system requiring protection and as a lived landscape of farms, homes and communities built over generations. The disagreement has simmered through more than a decade of committees, consultations and draft notifications.

    Conclusion

    Seven drafts have narrowed the area and settled nothing. The Centre and the State are not arguing about protection; they are arguing about the unit the line is drawn on, and each successive draft has restated that disagreement rather than resolved it. With the objection window now shut, the decision point is whether the Centre finalises the notification on its own mapping or reopens the plot level verification the State’s committee asked for.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2016] Gadgil Committee Report’ and ‘Kasturirangan Committee Report’, sometimes seen in the news, are related to (a) constitutional reforms (b) Ganga Action Plan (c) linking of rivers (d) protection of Western Ghats Answer: (d)”

  • Research team documents 3,261 flowering plant species in Agasthyamalai reserve

    Why in the News

    A research team at the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI), Thiruvananthapuram, has compiled the first comprehensive checklist of the flowering plants of the Agasthyamalai Biosphere Reserve (ABR). The checklist records 3,261 species, 26 sub species and 28 varieties. It has been published in the journal Plant Science Today. The work reaffirms the global significance of the Western Ghats as a biodiversity hotspot. It also states a claim that follows from the data, that protection of the range requires focussed, region specific strategies rather than a uniform one.

    What does the checklist actually record?

    1. Taxa documented: The team documented 3,261 species, 26 sub species and 28 varieties in the Agasthyamalai Biosphere Reserve.
    2. Taxonomic spread: Those taxa belong to 1,139 genera across 190 families.
    3. Standing claim it supports: The scale of the reserve’s floral wealth upholds its position as one of the most significant centres of angiosperm diversity and endemism in the Indian subcontinent.
    4. Publication: The checklist has been published in Plant Science Today as the Comprehensive checklist of the flowering plants of the Agasthyamalai Biosphere Reserve, South India.

    Which families dominate the reserve’s flora?

    1. Fabaceae leads: The legume family Fabaceae is the most species rich in the reserve with 349 taxa.
    2. Rubiaceae: The coffee family Rubiaceae follows with 194 taxa.
    3. Poaceae: The grass family Poaceae records 193 taxa.
    4. Orchidaceae: The orchid family Orchidaceae records 168 taxa, and Paphiopedilum druryi, an orchid endemic to Agasthyamalai, sits within it.

    What does the endemism pattern show?

    1. Share endemic to India: A remarkably high level of endemism was recorded, with 1,018 taxa, or 31.2 per cent of the total, endemic to India.
    2. Narrow range endemics: That figure includes 245 steno endemic taxa, meaning taxa confined to highly specialised habitats within a very small range.
    3. What narrow endemism implies: A taxon restricted to one specialised habitat cannot relocate when that habitat is altered, so the loss of a single slope or stream margin can remove it entirely.

    What do the shared taxa say about the reserve’s biogeography?

    1. Affinity with Sri Lanka: The flora shows a strong biogeographic affinity with Sri Lanka, with the two regions sharing 347 taxa.
    2. Explanations offered: The reasons range from historical land connections during periods of lower sea level, to a shared Gondwanan history, to long term climatic similarities.
    3. A transatlantic element: 102 taxa display affinity with tropical American flora.
    4. How that is explained: That pattern possibly reflects long distance dispersal events, or naturalisation after introduction by humans.

    Why does a region specific checklist matter for conservation?

    1. Baseline for protection: A complete inventory establishes what exists before change is measured, which is the precondition for any claim that a species has been lost.
    2. Fragility of the landscape: The hill systems and vegetation of the reserve constitute a biologically unique yet ecologically fragile landscape.
    3. Administrative spread: The reserve is spread over Keralam and Tamil Nadu, so any protection strategy has to work across two State administrations.
    4. Position among reserves: The ABR is one of four biosphere reserves in south India, which places the checklist within a comparable set rather than as an isolated record.

    Challenges to conserving the Agasthyamalai Biosphere Reserve

    1. Fragmentation of the habitat: Plantation estates, roads and reservoirs cut continuous forest into blocks and isolate the populations of narrow range plants. Eg. Tea and cardamom estates in the Agasthyamalai landscape sit between the protected blocks of the reserve.
      The Fix: Notify and restore the identified corridor stretches between the reserve’s blocks as eco restoration zones under the State forest working plans.
    2. Invasive species displacement: Introduced plants colonise disturbed ground and crowd out the endemic understorey that the checklist records. Eg. Lantana camara and Mikania micrantha have spread widely through Western Ghats forest margins.
      The Fix: Fund a scheduled removal and native replanting cycle at forest edges, with monitoring keyed to the checklist’s endemic taxa.
    3. Collection pressure on high value taxa: Orchids and medicinal plants with narrow ranges face extraction for horticulture and for the herbal trade. Eg. Paphiopedilum druryi, endemic to Agasthyamalai, has been depleted by collection from the wild.
      The Fix: Place the steno endemic taxa on the State’s restricted collection list and pair it with nursery propagation at JNTBGRI to supply legitimate demand.
    4. Split administration across two States: A single ecological unit managed by two State forest departments produces divergent rules on the same slope. Eg. The reserve is spread over Keralam and Tamil Nadu with separate working plans on each side.
      The Fix: Constitute a standing joint management committee for the reserve with a common monitoring protocol and a shared annual report.
    5. Climate driven upslope shift: Warming pushes montane species upward, and taxa already at the summit ranges have nowhere to move. Eg. Shola grassland systems in the higher Western Ghats are already recording shifts in species composition.
      The Fix: Establish permanent altitudinal monitoring plots along the reserve’s elevation gradient, so range shifts are detected against the new baseline rather than inferred later.

    Conclusion

    The reserve now has a documented floristic baseline where it previously had none. The value of that baseline is that endemism can be located precisely, down to taxa confined to single specialised habitats, which is what makes uniform protection inadequate for this landscape. The finding the checklist leaves unresolved is how two State administrations manage one ecological unit against a single standard. What follows is whether the endemic taxa the list identifies are translated into a protected species schedule and a monitoring cycle.

    Back2Basics: Agasthyamalai Biosphere Reserve

    1. Designation: It was designated a biosphere reserve in 2001 and was added to the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves in 2016.
    2. Location: It lies in the southern Western Ghats across Keralam and Tamil Nadu, and takes its name from the Agasthyamalai peak.
    3. Constituent protected areas: It includes Neyyar, Peppara and Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuaries and the Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve.
    4. Cultural association: The Kani tribal community inhabits the landscape and its knowledge of the plant Trichopus zeylanicus produced India’s first benefit sharing arrangement for traditional knowledge.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2019] Which of the following are in Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve? (a) Neyyar, Peppara and Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuaries; and Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (b) Mudumalai, Sathyamangalam and Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuaries; and Silent Valley National Park (c) Kaundinya, Gundla Brahme-swaram and Papikonda Wildlife Sanctuaries; and Mukurthi National Park (d) Kawal and Sri Venkateswara Wildlife Sanctuaries; and Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve | Answer: (a)”

  • Botswana cheetah released in MP’s Gandhi Sagar park

    Why in the News

    The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister has released CCB-2, a female cheetah brought to India from Botswana, into Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary on the boundary of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Gandhi Sagar became the country’s second cheetah habitat in April 2025, when two male cheetahs, Pawak and Prabhas, were moved there from Kuno National Park. The release follows the birth of four cubs at Kuno on 18 September to an India born female, the first cheetahs of a second generation born on Indian soil. The tension is that Project Cheetah is now producing animals inside India faster than it is establishing sites able to hold and breed them, and the cheetahs already moved to the second site have not reproduced there.

    What is Project Cheetah?

    1. About: Project Cheetah is the programme to reintroduce the cheetah to India by importing animals from Africa, the species having been declared extinct in the country in 1952.
    2. Who runs it: It is administered by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change through the National Tiger Conservation Authority, with the Wildlife Institute of India as technical partner.
    3. The imports so far: Eight cheetahs were brought from Namibia in September 2022 and twelve from South Africa in February 2023, with Kuno National Park as the first release site.
    4. Why more than one site: The programme’s action plan requires multiple release sites, because a single population in one park carries the full risk of disease, prey failure and territorial conflict.

    What does the CCB-2 release change at Gandhi Sagar?

    1. The animal and the move: CCB-2 is around three years old and was relocated from Kuno National Park in the Gwalior and Chambal region of Madhya Pradesh.
    2. The site’s population: Her arrival takes Gandhi Sagar to four cheetahs, two males and two females.
    3. The breeding objective: Wildlife officials expect her to start a new family at the site, because the female already there has not mated with either of the two resident males.
    4. What a working second site would mean: A second breeding site converts the programme from a single park holding every animal into a landscape with more than one viable population.

    What does the Kuno birth signify for the programme?

    1. The litter: An India born female, KGP12, gave birth to four cubs at Kuno on 18 September.
    2. Second generation born in India: KGP12 was herself born in India to a cheetah brought from South Africa, which makes her cubs part of a second generation born on Indian soil.
    3. The population count: The latest births took India’s total cheetah population to 56.
    4. Why generation depth matters: A population reproducing across two generations inside the country no longer depends on continued imports to sustain its numbers.

    Challenges to Project Cheetah

    1. The prey base has to exist before the animal arrives: A release site needs a stocked ungulate population before a cheetah is introduced, and building one takes years of protection and supplementation. Eg. Chital were translocated into Kuno from other reserves to raise prey density ahead of the first release in 2022.
      The Fix: Fix a measured prey density threshold for each site and make meeting it a precondition for any further release.
    2. Enclosure survival is not wild survival: Animals held in soft release bomas and large fenced enclosures are managed rather than free ranging, so survival figures recorded inside them do not test the reintroduction. Eg. Several Kuno cheetahs were returned to enclosures after wandering out of the park into surrounding farmland.
      The Fix: Publish the share of the population that has completed a full year free ranging outside enclosures as the programme’s headline metric.
    3. Mortality from conditions the source population never faced: Indian monsoon humidity produced infection under radio collars, a failure mode absent in the African range. Eg. Cheetahs at Kuno died in 2023 from septicaemia arising beneath satellite collars during the wet season.
      The Fix: Standardise a monsoon collar protocol with scheduled removal and veterinary inspection through the wet months.
    4. Conflict at the boundary of a small park: A cheetah ranges far beyond a sanctuary’s notified area, so animals enter village land where compensation and local tolerance decide whether they survive. Eg. Kuno cheetahs have repeatedly moved into farmland in Sheopur district and been recaptured.
      The Fix: Extend a dedicated compensation and rapid response scheme across every village in the dispersal belt of each release site.
    5. One state carries the whole programme: Both release sites lie in Madhya Pradesh and in the same Chambal basin, so a disease outbreak or a drought in that landscape reaches the entire Indian population. Eg. The cheetah conservation breeding centre approved at the Banni grasslands in Gujarat remains outside the active release plan.
      The Fix: Bring a release site outside Madhya Pradesh into the plan on a fixed timeline rather than as a future option.

    Conclusion

    Project Cheetah has passed the point at which its success is measured by arrivals. A population that has now bred to a second generation inside the country is no longer an import programme, it is a management problem, and the binding constraint has shifted from securing animals to securing landscapes that can hold them. What to watch is whether the pair at Gandhi Sagar produces a litter in the coming season, because a second site that holds cheetahs without breeding them extends the programme’s footprint without reducing its concentration of risk.

    Back2Basics: Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary

    1. Designation and location: Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary was notified in 1974 and spreads across the Mandsaur and Neemuch districts of Madhya Pradesh.
    2. River and reservoir: It lies along the Chambal river and adjoins the Gandhi Sagar dam reservoir, which forms part of its boundary.
    3. Terrain: The habitat is open savanna type grassland over rocky ground with dry deciduous scrub, which is the terrain the cheetah hunts in.
    4. Contiguity across the border: It adjoins the Bhainsrodgarh Wildlife Sanctuary in Rajasthan, which gives the two states a shared dispersal landscape.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “Recently there was a proposal to translocate some of the lions from their natural habitat in Gujarat to which one of the following sites? (a) Corbett National Park (b) Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary (c) Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary (d) Sariska National Park”

  • SC committee pulls up Assam government for inaction over mining activity near Kaziranga

    SC committee pulls up Assam government for inaction over mining activity near Kaziranga

    Why in the News

    The Central Empowered Committee (CEC), a body constituted by the Supreme Court to monitor compliance with its forest and wildlife orders, has held that the Assam government did not address mining in and around the Parkup Pahar Range with the seriousness it deserved. The Range is a declared wildlife sanctuary and a vital ecological corridor on the southern boundary of Kaziranga National Park. The finding follows the CEC’s own directions of 30 May 2025 to the Assam Chief Secretary, which required a comprehensive Watershed Drainage Analysis Report and quarterly status reports on action against reported violations. The Supreme Court had already restrained all mining along Kaziranga’s southern boundary by an order of 12 April 2019. The committee’s finding lands amid a separate controversy over a plan to reduce the Eco-Sensitive Zone of Kaziranga National Park, so the State is seeking a narrower buffer while existing court-ordered protections remain unimplemented.

    What is the Central Empowered Committee?

    1. A court appointed compliance body: The CEC was constituted by the Supreme Court to monitor and report on compliance with its orders in forest and wildlife matters, and to examine applications referred to it.
    2. What it produces: It examines complaints and applications, calls for records from State governments, and files reports and recommendations to the Supreme Court on which the Court then acts.
    3. How its directions reach a State: It writes directly to the State Chief Secretary with timelines and required submissions, and treats the absence of a submission as a compliance failure to be reported.

    What did the Right to Information trail reveal?

    1. The application: A Right to Information (RTI) application was filed on 15 June by an environmental activist, seeking details of compliance with those directions.
    2. What was sought: It asked for copies of both submissions the directions had required of the State.
    3. The core document is missing: The CEC’s response of 17 July stated that it did not receive the comprehensive Watershed Drainage Analysis Report.
    4. Partial compliance only: The response said the quarterly status reports had been attached, and it does not show that the watershed exercise the CEC ordered was completed.
    5. The deadline had already passed: The CEC had fixed October 2025 as the deadline for submitting the watershed report.

    What does the earlier record show?

    1. The originating proceeding: The CEC recorded allegations of renewed mining in Parkup Pahar in the same report that carried those directions, filed on “Application No.1592 of 2024”.
    2. The standing court order: The Supreme Court’s order of 12 April 2019 restrained all mining and related activities along the southern boundary of Kaziranga, and throughout the catchments of rivers and streams originating in the Karbi Anglong hills and flowing into the park.
    3. The construction bar: The same order prohibited new construction on private lands forming part of nine identified animal corridors.
    4. Mining continued regardless: On 3 March the CEC wrote to the Assam Chief Secretary noting that mining and related activities had been going on “in some way on one pretext or the other”.
    5. The local authority’s conduct: The same letter recorded that the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) was not presenting a holistic picture to the courts. The KAAC administers Karbi Anglong, the district that forms Kaziranga’s southern boundary.
    6. A six year old request remains unanswered: The CEC’s letter of 6 May 2021 specifically asked the State government to communicate the action taken to notify the animal corridors connecting the park, and no response was received. The catchment areas of the streams and rivers originating in the Karbi Anglong hills remain unidentified after more than six years.

    Why does the elephant reserve finding matter?

    1. The area is doubly protected: The Parkup Pahar Range is both a declared wildlife sanctuary and a vital ecological corridor linking the park to the Karbi Anglong hills.
    2. The reserve covers both landscapes: The Karbi Anglong Elephant Reserve covers Karbi Anglong and Kaziranga National Park, so the mining sits inside a notified elephant reserve rather than beside one.
    3. Documented damage: The panel pointed to areas of the reserve ravaged by large-scale mining, and to the death of several elephants due to conflicts with humans.
    4. The leases themselves are questioned: The CEC asked how mining leases around Borjuri could have been sanctioned at all, given that the area forms part of the elephant reserve.
    5. The administering council is faulted directly: The CEC recorded that the KAAC “seems oblivious of all these notifications and is not conscious of the measures that need to be taken to protect the ecology and wildlife of the area”.
    6. The corridor system is the stake: Animal corridors are what allow a population to move between the park and the hills, so an unnotified corridor is legally open to the construction the 2019 order sought to bar.

    Challenges to enforcing the Central Empowered Committee’s directions

    1. The committee has no independent enforcement power: The CEC reports and recommends, and only the Supreme Court can compel a State, so a State that misses a deadline faces no immediate consequence. Eg. The October 2025 watershed report deadline passed without the report and without penalty. Fix. Attach a default consequence to a missed CEC deadline, such as automatic suspension of fresh mineral concessions in the area concerned until the submission is filed.
    2. Autonomous councils sit outside the reporting chain: Sixth Schedule councils administer land and minor minerals in their areas, and directions addressed to the State Chief Secretary do not bind them directly. Eg. The National Green Tribunal’s 2014 ban on rat-hole coal mining in Meghalaya was directed at the State government, while the land it covered is administered by Sixth Schedule district councils. Fix. Make the autonomous council a named respondent in compliance proceedings covering its area, with its own filing obligation.
    3. Corridor notification is discretionary in practice: Corridors are identified in reports and remain unnotified, so no legal restriction attaches to the land inside them. Eg. Nine animal corridors around Kaziranga identified in 2019 remain unnotified. Fix. Set a statutory deadline after identification, on the expiry of which the corridor stands provisionally notified pending State action.
    4. Baseline studies are the first casualty of delay: Watershed and catchment mapping is expensive and slow, and its absence makes every subsequent violation hard to establish. Eg. The catchment areas of streams flowing into the park remain unidentified after more than six years. Fix. Fund catchment mapping from the Compensatory Afforestation Fund and commission it through a central technical agency rather than the defaulting State.
    5. Compliance is monitored through citizen requests: The gap in this case surfaced through a private RTI application rather than through a compliance dashboard. Eg. The missing watershed report was revealed by an activist’s application of 15 June. Fix. Publish CEC directions and their compliance status on a public portal, so a lapsed deadline is visible without an application.

    Conclusion

    The Central Empowered Committee has reiterated that its earlier recommendations remain unimplemented and has asked the Assam government to ensure speedy implementation of all of them, and to immediately notify the nine identified animal corridors. The current status is that the watershed report is outstanding, the corridors are unnotified, and mining leases inside the Karbi Anglong Elephant Reserve remain unexplained. The next milestone is the State’s response on the corridor notification and the watershed exercise, alongside the separate decision on the proposed reduction of Kaziranga’s Eco-Sensitive Zone. The case turns on compliance rather than on the adequacy of the law, since the restraining order and the protected area notifications already exist.

    “[2026] With reference to Madhav National Park, which of the following statements is/are correct?

    1. It was declared a Tiger Reserve in India in 2025.

    2. Sakhya Sagar, which is designated as a Ramsar Site, is situated within this National Park.

    3. Its area is shared between Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 1 and 2

    (c) 2 and 3

    (d) 3 only

  • Supreme Court orders a time bound eviction framework for Agasthyamalai encroachments

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has held that clearing encroachments inside the protected areas of the Agasthyamalai landscape requires a structured, time bound and closely monitored framework. Encroachments have survived decades of directions from the Madras High Court and the top court, so the Court has shifted from ordering eviction to removing the benefits that keep illegal occupation viable. The Court also raised the option of using paramilitary forces to carry out the evictions.

    What is the Central Empowered Committee?

    1. About: The Central Empowered Committee (CEC) is a body that examines forest and wildlife compliance matters and reports its findings and recommendations directly to the Supreme Court.
    2. Mandate in this case: The Court directed it last year to survey the entire Agasthyamalai landscape and identify every non forestry activity running contrary to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 and the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
    3. Output: It submitted an interim report carrying division wise findings and recommended a time bound, division wise encroachment eviction plan.

    What did the Central Empowered Committee find on the ground?

    1. Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary: An area of 427.40 hectares stands encroached, with 237.09 hectares caught in litigation. Verified maps of the reserve forest are not available.
    2. Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve: As per official records of 2020, around 4,595 individuals are encroaching upon 5,071.27 hectares of reserved forest land.
    3. Nature of the occupation: The encroachments there are old, with many holdings under permanent cultivation of silk cotton, cardamom and beans.
    4. Structures inside forest land: A total of 116 government and public utility structures have been constructed inside forest lands without prior approval.
    5. Encroachers on the government payroll: A total of 118 individuals listed as encroachers were identified as serving or retired government employees, including personnel from the Army, the Police, the Forest Department and other State departments.
    6. Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve: The total extent of encroachment is 10.16 hectares by 998 families.

    Why does encroachment in Srivilliputhur-Megamalai carry consequences beyond the forest boundary?

    1. Upper catchment function: The Committee recorded the reserve as one of the most ecologically vulnerable areas because it forms the upper catchment of the Vaigai river.
    2. Downstream dependence: The Vaigai is a critical water source for five downstream districts, so degradation of the catchment transfers the cost to users outside the forest.
    3. Permanent cultivation: Standing plantation crops convert a temporary trespass into a settled land use that resists seasonal eviction.
    4. Enforcement record: Despite clear orders from the Madras High Court to remove encroachments, no significant progress has been made so far.

    What did Tamil Nadu offer in its defence?

    1. Detailed affidavit: The State filed an affidavit listing the steps its authorities had already taken against encroachment.
    2. Resistance on the ground: It acknowledged resistance from encroachers as a live obstacle to eviction drives.
    3. Pending litigation: It cited ongoing court cases that block action on specific parcels.
    4. Social profile of encroachers: It stated that many encroachers were landless and drawn from economically weaker sections.
    5. Law and order risk: The Committee separately recorded that law and order problems arose whenever the Forest Department attempted evictions, making a joint effort necessary.

    Can the difficulty of rehabilitation justify indefinite postponement of eviction?

    1. The Court’s acceptance: The Bench accepted that the complexity of the rehabilitation task is real and cannot be understated.
    2. The limit it set: That complexity cannot serve as a perpetual justification for the indefinite postponement of legally mandated eviction and restoration measures.
    3. What the two positions expose: The State’s constraint is genuine and its cost falls on the forest, so every year of delay converts an unlawful occupation into a settled claim.
    4. The shift in remedy: The Court moved from repeating an eviction order that had failed for decades to withdrawing the entitlements that make continued occupation rational.

    What has the Supreme Court directed?

    1. Action against government servants: Disciplinary and legal action must be initiated against all 118 identified government servants found to be encroachers.
    2. Moratorium on state benefits: A blanket moratorium was sought on the extension of welfare schemes, public utilities, transport facilities, electricity supply and infrastructure support within encroached forest areas, so that illegal occupation is neither incentivised nor legitimised.
    3. Freeze on new activity: A complete prohibition was ordered on the approval or commencement of any new non forestry activity within Agasthyamalai.
    4. A monitored framework: The matter requires a structured, time bound and closely monitored framework rather than periodic directions.
    5. Force option: The Court went as far as to suggest using the paramilitary to evict the encroachers and protect the ecologically sensitive region.

    Why has the political economy of eviction defeated three decades of orders?

    1. Benefits without title: Welfare schemes, electricity and transport reaching encroached parcels signalled state acceptance, which is precisely what the moratorium now targets.
    2. Enforcers as beneficiaries: With 118 serving or retired government employees among the encroachers, including Forest Department personnel, the enforcing agency contained a section of the offenders.
    3. Numbers as leverage: Evicting 4,595 individuals in a single reserve converts a forest law question into a mass displacement question that no district administration will initiate alone.
    4. Electoral exposure: The newly formed coalition government in Tamil Nadu faces two major Dravidian parties in the Opposition that are likely to resist an eviction touching thousands of families.
    5. Restoration burden: Beyond eviction, the State carries the task of resettling and rehabilitating the displaced families and restoring the original forest cover.

    Conclusion

    The Supreme Court has accepted that a repeated eviction order is not a remedy when the State’s own benefit delivery keeps encroachment viable, so it has attacked the incentive rather than only the occupation. The directions now require disciplinary action against 118 government servants, a freeze on welfare and utility extension inside encroached forest, and a prohibition on fresh non forestry activity in Agasthyamalai. The State must now produce a division wise, time bound eviction and restoration plan while simultaneously resettling landless families it has itself described as economically weak. Whether the moratorium survives the political cost of enforcing it is the test the next hearing will apply.

    Protected Area Governance in India

    1. About: A protected area is a legally notified tract managed primarily for the conservation of wildlife and its habitat, with human use restricted by statute rather than by administrative discretion.
    2. Four statutory categories: The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 provides for National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries, Conservation Reserves and Community Reserves, each with a different level of permitted human activity.
    3. Scale: India’s protected area network covers a little over 5 percent of the country’s geographical area, while recorded forest cover is close to a fifth of it.
    4. Tiger reserves: A tiger reserve is constituted with a core or Critical Tiger Habitat, kept inviolate, and a buffer zone allowing regulated coexistence.
    5. Diversion control: Any use of forest land for a non forest purpose requires prior central approval under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, which is why the 116 unapproved structures in Agasthyamalai are themselves an offence.
    6. Judicial supervision: Forest governance in India has been supervised continuously by the Supreme Court since the 1996 T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad proceedings, which extended statutory forest protection to all land recorded as forest.

    Laws and Rules Governing Forests and Wildlife in India

    1. Indian Forest Act, 1927: Provides for the constitution of reserved forests, protected forests and village forests, and defines forest offences and their penalties.
    2. Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972: Establishes protected areas, prohibits hunting of scheduled species and regulates trade in wildlife articles.
    3. 2006 amendment: Created the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the statutory concept of Critical Tiger Habitat.
    4. 2022 amendment: Restructured the species schedules and gave effect to India’s obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
    5. Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980: Bars the dereservation of reserved forest and the use of forest land for non forest purposes without prior approval of the Union government.
    6. Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 2023: Renamed the 1980 Act and exempted specified categories of land and strategic projects from prior approval.
    7. Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006: Recognises individual and community forest rights of forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers and provides the only lawful route for settling occupation claims.
    8. Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016: Governs the use of funds collected as compensatory afforestation and net present value from diverted forest land.
    9. Environment (Protection) Act, 1986: Provides the umbrella power under which eco sensitive zones around protected areas are notified.

    Key Facts about Protected Areas in India

    1. Project Tiger was launched in 1973 and Project Elephant in 1992.
    2. The National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau are the two central bodies created under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 and its amendments.
    3. Critical Tiger Habitat is notified under Section 38V of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 on the basis of scientific evidence.
    4. The Western Ghats were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012 under the natural criteria.
    5. Wildlife Week is observed from 2 to 8 October every year.
    6. India’s biosphere reserves follow the core, buffer and transition zoning of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme.

    Back2Basics: The Agasthyamalai Landscape

    1. Location: It occupies the southern end of the Western Ghats, straddling the Tamil Nadu and Kerala border, and is named after the Agastyamalai peak.
    2. Designation: The Agasthyamalai Biosphere Reserve was designated in 2001 and was added to the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves in 2016.
    3. Protected areas on the Tamil Nadu side: Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve and Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary.
    4. Protected areas on the Kerala side: Neyyar, Peppara and Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuaries.
    5. Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve: Notified in 1988 as Tamil Nadu’s first tiger reserve, it is often called a river sanctuary for the number of streams rising within it.
    6. Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve: Notified in 2021 as Tamil Nadu’s fifth tiger reserve, it forms the upper catchment of the Vaigai river.
    7. Species: The landscape holds the endemic lion tailed macaque, the Nilgiri tahr and the Nilgiri langur, alongside tiger and elephant populations.
    8. Communities: The Kani tribal community lives in the landscape and is associated with the traditional knowledge of the Arogyapacha plant.

    Challenges in Protected Area Management in India

    1. Encroachment and regularisation pressure: Long standing occupation acquires political protection and becomes practically irreversible. e.g. the 427.40 hectares encroached in Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary, of which 237.09 hectares sit in litigation.
    2. Unauthorised construction inside forest land: Public agencies themselves build without the prior approval the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 requires. e.g. the 116 government and public utility structures recorded inside Agasthyamalai forest land.
    3. Linear infrastructure fragmentation: Roads and railway lines cut habitat into blocks and raise animal mortality. e.g. animal deaths on the national highway running through Kaziranga National Park during the annual Brahmaputra floods.
    4. Human wildlife conflict: Crop and life losses on the periphery erode local support for strict protection. e.g. repeated elephant deaths on the Madukkarai railway stretch near Coimbatore.
    5. Rights settlement conflicting with eviction: Claims under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and eviction drives run on separate tracks with no sequencing. e.g. the Supreme Court’s February 2019 order in Wildlife First v Union of India directing eviction of rejected claimants, which was stayed within weeks.
    6. Invasive species: Alien plants suppress native fodder and degrade grazing habitat. e.g. the spread of Lantana camara and Senna spectabilis across Bandipur and Wayanad.
    7. Frontline capacity deficit: Vacancies and weak equipment leave beat level protection thin. e.g. the Forest Department in Agasthyamalai being unable to conduct evictions without a joint force because of law and order risk.

    Way Forward

    1. Division wise time bound plan: Adopt the Committee’s recommendation of a division wise eviction schedule with named officers, fixed dates and monthly reporting to the Court.
    2. Sequence rights settlement before eviction: Complete the disposal of individual and community claims under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 in each division first, so eviction proceeds only against occupation that has no legal basis.
    3. Rehabilitation package before displacement: Notify a resettlement package with alternative land, housing and livelihood support before any eviction of landless families, on the pattern of the voluntary village relocation model used in tiger reserves.
    4. Departmental accountability: Complete disciplinary proceedings against the 118 serving and retired government employees within a fixed period and publish the outcome.
    5. Verified cadastral mapping: Prepare and publish verified maps of the reserve forest boundaries of Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary using satellite imagery, since the absence of maps is itself an enabler of encroachment.
    6. Utility linkage audit: Audit every electricity connection, road and welfare scheme extended into forest parcels and terminate those inside notified boundaries.
    7. Catchment restoration: Fund assisted natural regeneration of the vacated Vaigai upper catchment through the Compensatory Afforestation Fund, with downstream district water users as monitored stakeholders.

    “[2020] Among the following Tiger Reserves, which one has the largest area under “Critical Tiger Habitat”?

    (a) Corbett

    (b) Ranthambore

    (c) Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam

    (d) Sunderbans