Category : Wildlife | Location : Madhya Pradesh | Posted on 2022-08-05 03:28:45
The Madhya Pradesh government recently issued a gazette notification denotifying the 202 sq km Karera Wildlife Sanctuary in the state’s Shivpuri district. In other words, the protection accorded to the habitat under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, was withdrawn. In terms of area, this is the biggest denotification of a sanctuary or national park, collectively called the Protected Area (PA), in MP ever since the Wildlife Act came into being.
The Karera Sanctuary was set up in 1981 to protect the endangered Great Indian Bustard. The area was known to have a population of the bird then. Ghatigaon Wildlife Sanctuary, another PA located not very far from the Karera Sanctuary, also had a population of the Great Indian Bustard.
To understand why the Karera Sanctuary was denotified, one needs to first assess the impact of creation of a sanctuary or national park on the lives of people living within its boundaries, besides the impact on commercial value of property within the notified area. The last recorded sighting of the Great Indian Bustard in Karera was in 1992. It is estimated that around 95 per cent of the sanctuary area is agricultural land.
While villagers within the sanctuary have continued to practise farming on land owned by them, their rights to buy or sell property, including within the notified area of the sanctuary, were taken away, as per provisions of the Wildlife Act. This led to a lot of resentment among the local people. Soon, demands started being raised for denotification of the sanctuary to lift the restrictions on sale of land. The fact that the Great Indian Bustard had not been sighted since 1992 helped the cause of those making this demand.
Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/why-a-wildlife-park-meant-to-protect-the-great-indian-bustard-got-denotified-in-mp-1983741-2022-08-04
