India inks deal for flying in cheetahs from Namibia for reintroduction in wild

India is set to bring cheetahs from Namibia for reintroduction into the wild – decades after the fastest land animal of the world went extinct in the country.

Bhupender Yadav, Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change of India, and Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Deputy Prime Minister of Namibia, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Wildlife Conservation and Sustainable Biodiversity Utilization in New Delhi on Wednesday. The MoU will pave the way for translocation of a few cheetahs from Namibia to India.

The cheetahs brought from Namibia will be released into the wild at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh in India. “Cheetah reintroduction in India has a larger goal of re-establishing ecological function in Indian grasslands that was lost due to extinction of Asiatic cheetah. This is in conformity with the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) guidelines on conservation translocations,” Yadav posted on Twitter. “

“This unique intercontinental translocation (of cheetahs) would be the first of its kind project ever and therefore has global attention,” High Commissioner of India to Namibia, Prashant Agarwal, said. “It will reaffirm our shared commitment to (wildlife) conservation.”

The cheetahs went extinct in India by 1952.

The Department of Forest of the Government of Madhya Pradesh has been working on the project for reintroduction of cheetahs in the Kuno National Park of the state for the past few years. The Indian Oil Corporation Limited is supporting the project.

The first batch of cheetahs are expected to fly in from Namibia to India within the next few months. They will be first kept in a special five square kilometre enclosure set up within the Kuno National Park itself for regular health check-ups and monitoring for six months before being released into the wild.

The Kuno National Park at present can accommodate a maximum of 21 cheetahs, but, once restored, the larger landscape can hold about 36 of them. “The carrying capacity can be further enhanced by including the remaining part of the Kuno Wildlife Division (1,280 sq km) through prey restoration,” according to a press-release issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

A team of forest officials of the Madhya Pradesh government visited Namibia earlier this year for training in monitoring cheetahs in the wild. A team of wildlife experts from Namibia will also visit India and spend nearly six months at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh to train local officials.

The MoU India and Namibia signed on Wednesday will promote sharing of good practices in technological applications and livelihood generation for local communities living in wildlife habitats. It will facilitate exchange of personnel for training and education in wildlife management, said Agarwal, New Delhi’s envoy to Windhoek. India will also help wildlife conservation personnel of Namibia in smart patrol, population estimation techniques and for surveillance and monitoring.

“These cheetahs would be the goodwill ambassador of Namibia (to India) and this friendly gesture on part of Namibia is deeply appreciated by the people of India,” Agarwal said in a statement issued in the capital of Namibia on Wednesday.

Nandi-Ndaitwah, who is also the Minister for International Relations and Cooperation of Namibia, had a separate meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. The two sides also signed another agreement for cooperation in forensic science.

“Our relationship extends to cooperation in political, economic, defence & (and) security, educational, health, development cooperation & capacity building domains. Discussed expanding it to energy, digital and health sectors as well,” Jaishankar tweeted after meeting his counterpart in the Government of Namibia. “Agreements signed today on reintroduction of Cheetahs and Forensic Sciences cooperation were notable.”