Grass Man of India awarded for his grassland conservation efforts

Dr Muratkar is a recipient of the 2013 Sanctuary Green Teacher Award

The Vidarbha-based botanist and professor, Dr Gajanan D Muratkar, popularly known as the ‘Grass Man of India’, has been awarded with the coveted Satpuda Landscape Tiger Partnership (SLTP) Conservation Hero Award for his invaluable grassland conservation efforts in the central Indian landscape.

Dr Muratkar is a professor at Sipna Education Society's Arts, Science and Commerce College at Chikhaldara in the Amravati district.

He is popularly known as a 'Grass Man of India' among the forest staff and has pioneered a meadow development technique in which he involves the field level forest staff to identify the local grasses, prepare a seed bank, create mother beds and introduce local grasses systematically to create the meadows.

This technique was developed by him in one of India's oldest tiger Reserves, Melghat Tiger Reserve in Amravati district in 2012.

In the past ten years, he has used this technique to eradicate weeds and create such meadows in other Tiger Reserves and protected Areas of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Kerala. He has been tirelessly working for the past decade in these ten states and has contributed a lot to tiger conservation. SLTP partners have taken cognizance of this extraordinary work and selected him for a Conservation Hero Award 2022.

Dr Muratkar is also a recipient of the 2013 Sanctuary Green Teacher Award.

Dr Murutkar was presented with the award at a ceremony in Nagpur amid the presence of Nishikant Kale, President of Nature Conservation Society of Amravati, Poonam and Harsh Dhanwatey, Co-founder Trustees of Tiger Research and Conservation Trust, Kishor Rithe, Founder of Satpuda Foundation), Sanjay Karkare, Assistant Director of BNHS, and Mandar Pingle, Assistant Director of Satpuda Foundation, Tony Renton, Advisor and Independent Chairman,SLTP, Claudio Sillero, WildCRU, University of Oxford and Yashvardhan Dalmia (SLTP Network Support Officer.

Previously, a dynamic Range forest officer Nilesh Gawande, a green reporter Rakhi Chavhan, Sumeri Lal Yadav, Deputy Ranger from Kanha Tiger Reserve have received this prestigious award.