Nobody wants to save the cheetah Indias ambitious plan to reintroduce the cheetah to Madhya Pradeshs Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary has hit a roadblock - apparently no one is willing to finance the relocation of 90-odd villages out of the parks area in Sagar district. The Madhya Pradesh government has refused to foot the bill of around Rs.200 crore to relocate the 90-odd villages in Nauradehi, spread over 1200 sq km, with the plea that the cheetah reintroduction plan was that of the Centre and as such the Centre should foot the bill. Following MPs refusal, the state forest department officials wrote to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and National Tiger Conservative Authority (NTCA) seeking funds for the project. Its been two months since the forest department wrote the letter, but is yet to get a reply from either the MoEF or the NTCA over the issue yet, a top official told India Today. The state forest department, meanwhile, is taking no chances with regard to the funds, especially after the bitter experience it went through during the proposed translocation of the Asiatic lion at Kuno-Palpur sanctuary. Initially, the Centre paid some money for the lion project but after sometime it backtracked. The forest department faced huge problems while preparing the sanctuary for the lions, the official said. We know that the project is of Rs.300 crore but we want commitment from MoEF or NTCA - about the agency which will fund the project, he added. We will begin the ground work only after this, he added. The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, had prepared a project of more than Rs.260 crore for the Cheetah re-introduction at Nauradehi, after Supreme Court said that the lions from Gir should be translocated to MPs Kuno-Palpur sanctuary. The MP forest department had prepared Kuno-Palpur sanctuary for the reintroduction of Cheetah in India. According to the project, an amount of Rs.25 - 30 crore would be needed to build an enclosure in an area of 150 sq km for the Cheetahs in Nauradehi. Initially, the worlds fastest land mammal on earth, the cheetahs would be put in the enclosure with huge boundary walls before being released in the wild. In the entire country, Nauradehi has been found to be the most suitable for the cheetah given that its forest was not dense enough to restrict the fast movement of spotted cat. Besides, the prey base of the cheetahs is also in abundance at the park, officials said. The project was conceived and announced by former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh in 2009. India once housed a huge number of cheetahs. The last known cheetah died in 1947 in what is now Chhattisgarh. It was declared extinct in India in 1952.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:43:31 +0000
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