Madhya Pradesh has bagged the highest number of awards for tiger conservation. In the two-day meeting of the Field Directors of the Tiger Reserves (TR) that began on Wednesday various conservation issues including protection, extremist threat, phase-4 monitoring and compliance of effective management were discussed at length.

Tells SC State Has All Expertise, Infrastructure & Environment

New Delhi: Madhya Pradesh on Monday pitched in with a plea in the Supreme Court for translocation of Asiatic lions from Gujarat to its Kuno Palpur sanctuary, insisting it has the entire wherewithal to ensure harmonious environment to the threatened species. State counsel Vibha Datta Makhija told a special forest bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and C K Prasad that Madhya Pradesh had “all the necessary infrastructure,

Madhya Pradesh, once famous as the “Tiger State,” lost 453 animals over the last decade. And how many culprits did the government bring to book? Just two. Recently accessed documents reveal only two cases of poaching reached their logical conclusion of conviction during this period, as of March 2012.

Sample the facts: according to the conservation programme ‘Project Tiger', the population of big cats in Madhya Pradesh in 2001-02 stood at 710. However, the 2011 census revealed there were only 257 tigers left in its six reserves — Bandhavgarh, Kanha, Panna, Bori-Satpura, Sanjay Dubri and Pench.

The Supreme Court (SC) verdict for making a buffer zone in the famous Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR) of the State has come out as a setback to the State Government. RTI and wildlife activist Ajay Dube of the State capital had moved a petition in the SC seeking buffer zone in Panna National Park. However, in the light of this petition, the apex court's verdict included 14 other national parks where buffer zones should be formed.

Good news for wildlife lovers! The tiger population in Madhya Pradesh is on rise. This central State, which is striving hard to regain its lost 'tiger State' tag, is full of reports of tiger cub births from all its corners. This has raised hopes that it would soon acquire its lost honour. There have been reports of tiger cub births from various national parks, tiger reserves and other places in the State. There are reports of over five dozen tiger cub births in the State since the last tiger census took place in 2011.

After Panna's successful rewilding, Sariska is sanguine

First there was the Sariska debacle in which all the tigers were found missing in the reserve in Rajasthan's Alwar district sometime in 2004-05. Then there was similar misfortune in Madhya Pradesh's Panna Tiger Reserve in February 2009 — the wild cats became extinct there.

The State Government is likely to recommend a CBI probe into the alleged disappearance and poaching of wild cats from Panna Tiger Reserve based on a report submitted by sanctuary authorities.

Sources said the report was submitted to the state government last month after a year-long follow up by the state administration and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) with PTR over the issue.

The Madya Pradesh government is likely to recommend a CBI probe into the alleged disappearance and poaching of wild cats from Panna Tiger Reserve based on a report submitted by sanctuary authorities.

Sources said the report was submitted to the Madhya Pradesh government last month after a year-long follow up by the state administration and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) with PTR over the issue.

The National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development Plan (IWRDP) had in a policy recommendation categorically stated that the “Himalayan river linking project was not feasible for the period of review up to 2050”.

The IWRDP was set up by the ministry of water resources and provided a detailed brief on the southern rivers also stating that there was no need to rewrite geography of the peninsula rivers as there was “no imperative necessity for such massive water transfer”.

Three years after the entire tiger population of the Panna Tiger Reserve was decimated, the Madhya Pradesh government has neither been able to fix responsibility for the disaster, nor has it handed over the enquiry to the Central Bureau of Investigation inspite of requests from the Ministry of Environment and forests and even the Prime Minister's Office.