India should drop the idea of Ken Betwa Linking Project (KBLP) which will require felling of 2 to 4 million trees in the emerald forests of Panna national park . Think of the loss of this staggering number of trees in the backdrop of the unprecedented summers that the country experienced in the year 2024. Many parts of Bundelkhand where Panna is situated recorded 49 degrees Celsius while the mercury soared to 52.9 degrees C in Delhi, later corrected by the government to 50 degrees C (49.9). For a moment forget the loss of tiger habitat in the park, think over our own survival. Referring to the special morphological significance and unique biodiversity of Panna national park, the central empowered committee of the Supreme Court on the KBLP observed ," implementing this project would result in the complete breakdown of the evolutionary processes of millions of years." It warned of the widespread ecological devastation.River Ken is lifeline of the tiger reser
Tigers continue to ‘vanish’ from Ranthambore national park and the issue is linked with “over population of tigers” in the park, extremely famous for wildlife tourism world over. The big cats in Rajasthan, it seems, ‘enjoy’ cordial relations with the politicians of the desert state, perhaps more because of tourism. While in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, the presence of tiger or a tiger reserve is linked with restrictions and the state government is sitting over many proposals to notify more protected areas , Rajasthan politicians apparently associate it with their achievement. Recent notification of Ramgarh Vishdhari as a tiger reserve in Bundi, the home district of Om Birla, Lok Sabha speaker, is the latest example. Ramgarh was accorded the status of tiger reserve to resolve the issue of disappearance of tigers from Ranthambore . For the first time, the state government admitted that 13 tigers were missing from Ranthambore from January 2019 to January 2022. NTCA Begins Inqui