Cheetahs will be back in India on Saturday, September 17th. On his birthday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious plan to reintroduce the world's fastest land animal will be unveiled. Eight cheetahs are brought to India from Namibia, 70 years after they were declared extinct in the country. They will then be released in the Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh.
What Is The Significance Of The Cheetah Reintroduction Project?
Cheetahs hold a special place in the national conservation ethic and ethos. Restoring the cheetah to India would have equally significant conservation implications. Cheetah restoration will be part of a prototype for restoring original cheetah habitats and biodiversity, assisting in the prevention of biodiversity degradation and loss.
Cheetahs have the lowest conflict with the human interests of any large carnivore because they pose no threat to humans and rarely attack large livestock. Bringing back a top predator restores historic evolutionary balance, which has cascading effects on various levels of the ecosystem. This will also result in better management and restoration of wildlife habitats (grasslands, scrublands, and open forest ecosystems), conservation of cheetah prey and sympatric endangered species, and a top-down effect of a large predator that enhances and maintains diversity in lower trophic levels of the ecosystems.
The primary goal of the Cheetah reintroduction project in India is to establish a viable cheetah metapopulation in India that allows the cheetah to perform its functional role as a top predator and allows for the cheetah's expansion within its historical range, thereby contributing to global conservation efforts.
Why Kuno National Park Of Madhya Pradesh Has Been Selected For This Project?
Between 2010 and 2012, ten sites were surveyed. Kuno National Park in the state of Madhya Pradesh was considered ready for receiving cheetah with the least management interventions among the potential sites evaluated for the feasibility of establishing cheetah populations in India based on IUCN guidelines for reintroductions that consider species viability according to demography, genetics, and socio-economics of conflict and livelihoods.
Maximum Entropy Models were used to model equivalent niche space in India using cheetah presence locations from Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe) along with relevant eco-climatic covariates.
The analysis shows that the cheetah's southern African climatic niche exists in India, with Kuno National Park having a high probability of cheetah habitat suitability.
The action plan for cheetah translocations in Kuno National Park was developed in accordance with IUCN guidelines, taking into account site assessment and prey density, as well as the park's current cheetah carrying capacity, among other factors.
While Kuno National Park currently has a carrying capacity of 21 cheetahs, once restored, the larger landscape can hold up to 36 cheetahs. The carrying capacity can be increased further by incorporating the remaining Kuno Wildlife Division (1,280 sq km) through prey restoration.
Major Actors Of The Project – Know The Organisations Involved In The Project:
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) would provide financial and administrative support to the cheetah reintroduction programme in India through National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). Participation of government and corporate agencies in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) would be encouraged in order to receive additional funding at the state and federal levels.
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), as well as national and international carnivore/cheetah experts/agencies, would provide technical and knowledge support to the programme.
Through capacity-building programmes in African cheetah conservation reserves, officials from the MoEF&CC, NTCA, WII, and state forest departments will be sensitised to ensure the success of cheetah reintroduction in India. Furthermore, African cheetah managers and biologists would be invited to train their Indian counterparts.
The Kuno National Park management will be in charge of monitoring, which is necessary for protection and management, while a cheetah research team will monitor for research.
Meet 'Chintu Cheetah' – Know How Local Participation Is Being Carried Out?
Various outreach and awareness programmes will be implemented to encourage local villagers to participate. Sarpanches (village chiefs), local leaders, teachers, social workers, religious figures, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) would be given a greater stake in conservation.
Awareness programmes are also being planned for schools, colleges, and villages to educate people about conservation and the various schemes offered by the forest department.
With a local mascot named "Chintu Cheetah," public awareness campaigns for the local communities are underway. Madhya Pradesh's Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has directed all state officials and elected members of the state assembly from the constituencies surrounding Kuno National Park to disseminate information about the cheetah-human interface.
The cheetah reintroduction in India is being overseen by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) guided and directed by a committee of experts appointed by the Supreme Court of India in 2020.