Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A substantial amount of funds for the management of Protected Areas (PAs) comes from the Centre. However, the allocation of the funds to national parks and sanctuaries that are not part of any tiger reserve is both insufficient and subjected to inordinately delays thus affecting the condition of these protected areas.

Some of these Protected Areas (PA) are now being explored by the tigers dispersing from the natal areas such as the extant tiger reserves and the Ratapani Sanctuary. Therefore, sanctuaries like Kheoni, Ghatigaon, Singhori, Gandhi Sagar, Ratapani and Madhav National Park must be strengthened by improving the quality of the habitat, supplementation of prey base and strengthening the protection skills of forest staff, states the State Wildlife Action Plan 2023-2043 released by state government recently.

In the chapter ‘Strengthening Protected Areas and The PA Network’, the report states that in Madhya Pradesh, at present, 11,006.60 sq km is under the Protected Areas (PAs) network. Of the 35 PAs in the state, the final notification has been issued only for 12. This means that the final settlement of the rights of the people is yet to be completed in 23 PAs. The PAs constitute around 11.62 per cent of the total forest areas.

Much more needs to be done in the forest areas outside the PAs for wildlife conservation. The report points out that for the effective management of any PA, it is mandatory to have a management plan prepared on the basis of sound scientific principles. But there is a serious lack of a dedicated planning unit for wildlife management plans. The plans are typically prepared by the officers posted in PAs, who are usually not able to devote the required time and resources to prepare good quality plans.

Suggestions

All PAs should have integrated and adaptive management plans that should be reviewed at the midterm of their duration and should be updated. Tiger conservation plans of Kanha, Pench, Badhavgarh, Panna need to be revised.

Management plans of Van Vihar National Park, Madhav National Park, Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary, Kheoni Wildlife Sanctuary, Sailana Wildlife Sanctuary also need revision  A more inclusive approach for the management of PAs needs to be adopted by enrolling key stakeholders during the preparation of management plans.