Management of tiger reserves today is too tiger-centric: Dr M K Ranjitsinh

The management of tiger reserves today is too much tiger centric, says Dr M K Ranjitsinh, the superhero of the Indian conservation community.

Known for his works including drafting of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and demarcating many forest as wildlife sanctuaries, Dr Ranjitsinh said: "The management of tiger reserves today is too much tiger centric and we at the time of starting the Project Tiger scheme had expected that the management of reserves would rather help to protect and conserve other flagship species.”

His observations came at the three-day-long fifth Central Indian Landscape Symposium (CLIS) that concluded over the weekend at the Infinity Tiger Resorts near the Mukki gate of Kanha Tiger Reserve.

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The Central Indian landscape rCIL) requires urgent efforts like habitat restoration and biodiversity conservation for ecological, water and livelihood security looking at the growing human population and its sustainable development needs, the meeting asserted.

The fifth CLIS was organised by Network for Conserving Central India (NCCI) and hosted in partnership with The Corbett Foundation.

The symposium is a biannual gathering of NCCI and friends. Previous symposia were organised at Melghat Tiger Reserve (2019), Pench Tiger Reserve (2016), Madhya Pradesh, and Kanha Tiger Reserve (2014), Madhya Pradesh on specific themes.

Recognizing that nature and people are intertwined and depend on each other, the theme for the symposium was “Jugalbandi: Exploring the duality and the dance of people’s livelihoods and ecological integrity in Central India.”

Several events were organised during the symposium like poster presentations, film screenings, panel discussions, haat, and slide presentations.

Dr.Ruth Defries Head of NCCI of Columbia University USA welcomed the participants and highlighted the achievements of NCCI in the past 8 years.

Kedar Gore, the host of the symposium while welcoming the delegates, expected healthy discussions and positive outcomes during the symposium.

The panel discussion on connectivity and coexistence which includes experts like Gary Tabor, Dr.Ravi Chellam, Kishor Rithe and Upasana Ganguly discussed the global targets and challenges before developing country like India and strategies to address the challenges like infrastructure development and human-wildlife conflict in tiger corridors and problems in coexistence.

Dr.Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Dean of School of Environment and Sustainability, Indian Institute for Human Settlements, stated that CIL is rich in diversity of flora, fauna, and agro diversity and needs to be protected.

The latest science tells us that the forests, grasslands, and wetlands in CIL are now known to be important for regulating the monsoon rains.