The Lalit Blog

Lalit Shastri Madhya Pradesh has been called The Tiger State as this Central Indian State had the largest tiger population in the world. Today the state is confronted with the biggest tiger crisis. The tiger habitat is getting destroyed by massive biotic pressure caused by rapidly increasing population, encroachment, poaching, reckless grazing, illegal mining, unhindered minor forest produce and firewood collection, poor enforcement and lack of accountability. Tiger continues to remain CREW's main concern when we are confronted with the question of the protection and conservation of wildlife and ecological balance in the country in general and Madhya Pradesh in particular. Unfortunately the circumstances on the ground indicate that the powers that be only pay lip service and exhibit superficial concern for the basic issues involved; whereas they remain mainly interested in deriving benefits, both financial as well as political by ensuring populist activities to continue even in the...

from: The Hindu 17/08/2004 By Lalit Shastri BHOPAL, AUG. 16. There has been a spurt in illegal fishing in the Totladoh reservoir inside the Pench tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh despite a ban imposed by the Supreme Court in this Protected Area. There was tremendous biotic pressure on the Pench reserve forest when the Pench dam was under construction. Soon the managers of the reserve forest were confronted with the problem of illegal fishing but this menace could be contained only after the Supreme Court had ordered a complete ban on fishing in this reservoir. State Forest Department sources told this correspondent today that hundreds of villagers are involved in illegal fishing in the Totladoh reservoir. When contacted, the founder President of Vasundhra, a Nagpur-based non-Government organisation that has been in the forefront spreading awareness about forests and wildlife among school students and the public, Gopal Ramchandra Thosar, said that anti-social elements were again active a...

LALIT SHASTRI The buffer zone of the Kanha Tiger Reserve in Central India leaves a direct impact and exerts biotic pressure on the peripheral Park area. The villagers here depend largely on the resources of the Protected Area when it comes to the collection of fuel wood and Minor Forest Produce, use of some water bodies and cattle grazing. Eighteen forest villages are located within the boundary of Kanha National Park. Three of these are located inside the core zone and the remaining in the peripheral area. There are also 150 villages spread in 5 different ranges of the Buffer Zone Division. At least 40 peripheral villages have an impact, in one form or the other, on the protected area. The villagers, either Gond or the Baiga tribals, are traditionally food gatherers and pastoral. For subsistence, they also rely on collection of minor forest produce and wages earned through routine park works. Now they are also adapting to the agriculture mode of production. As a policy, the buffer zon...

Dr. T. Chatterjee, Secretary Environment and Forests, Government of India and Chairman Board of Governors, Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) defied imagination when he suggested at the Eighth Convocation of IIFM Bhopal on April 4, 2011 that an area of policy research could be devoted to study the feasibility of using the wood value of forests (that could be grown) in 35 million hectares of degraded forests in the country for high-end products. What's wrong with going back to the old days of wooden furniture so long as it brings revenue to the forest dwellers creating an incentive in them to protect forests and forest dependent wildlife. Even tiger conservation could be incentivised not by relocating human communities away from buffer zones but by paying them "prevention-fee" every month linking such payments to the animal population in the reserve area they border, he added.

CREW's aim is to emerge as Central India's primary centre for policy and enforcement regarding conservation and management of natural resources, wildlife and biodiversity. The Central Indian States of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have distinctive characteristics that set this region apart from other areas of the Indian sub-continent. Besides the wealth of natural resources-both forest and mineral--some of the most important archaeological sites, dating back to ten thousand years are located in Madhya Pradesh. ...

It was a bright sunny afternoon; the year was 1998; some time in April, when I heard a pleasant trilling sound of a bird just outside my window as I worked on my news story of the day. At that time I was working for The Hindu as Principal Correspondent for Madhya Pradesh in central India. The continuous proclamation of the bird’s presence touched the chord of anxiety and without losing any time, I was out gazing through the thicket and the entangled shoots and branches of my Bougainvillea tree to spot the bird singing those beautiful notes. Oh what a delight it was to witness for the first time the grandeur of a grey-headed mango yellow bird, the size of a sparrow.I kept gazing at the bird but remained unsatatiated though the avian delight stayed hooked to the same branch for a long time oblivious of my presence. This one episode came as a turning point in my life. It kindled in me the desire to explore, to learn, and to know as much as I could about the wonderful world of birds. That...

The rapidly shrinking Bada Talab of Bhopal (now called Bhoj Tal). Mark the concrete reinforcement on the left-this wall was constructed for the purpose of lake conservation with the help of Japanese funds under the ambitious Bhoj Wetland project. Despite the conservation efforts, the fact remains that the lake is now threatened like never before by reckless development activities and massive destruction of forests in the catchment of the Kolans River in neighbouring Sehore district. This river is now almost dry due to massive destruction of the the green cover under the knowledge and supervision of those heading successive governments.