Madhya Pradesh Pench National Park Plans To Cut Over 550 Trees For Tiger Safari

Admin 02-May-2016 15:51:09 Inothernews

Madhya Pradesh Pench National Park Plans To Cut Over 550 Trees For Tiger Safari


The forest department at Madhya Pradesh is considering a proposal to cut over 550 trees to make way for a tiger safari at the Pench national park, which is also the home of 'Mowgli', a fictional character and protagonist in famous writer’s Rudyard Kipling's 'The Jungle Book'. The forest department has started working on a project to create tiger safari in the park straddling Seoni and Chhindwara districts of the state. It has been proposed to erect a boundary wall which would require pruning of shrubs and felling of 556 trees, according to an order issued by Pench national park's authorities. However, the plan has been paused to seek permission of Delhi-based National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). The decision to cut 556 has, however, been criticised by wildlife activists who termed it as a violation of rules.



‘We are against the creation of tiger safari inside Pench national park. There have been continuous cases of tiger deaths in Madhya Pradesh. The state government instead of taking steps towards protection of tigers is trying to reduce the green cover and increasing people's activities. The NTCA must reject this plan,’ said Ajay Dubey, on whose petition Supreme Court had in 2010 banned tourism inside tiger reserves.

There are six tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh namely Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Panna, Bori-Satpura, Sanjay-Dubri and Pench, which have about 257 big cats. While the tiger population in the country was estimated at 1,706 in 2010, it had risen to 2,226 in 2014.

Madhya Pradesh ranks third, after Karnataka and Uttarakhand, in tiger population in the country.

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