Bhopal: Is the curtain finally and quietly on a three -decade saga – the elusive plan to bring Asian lions from Gir Sanctuary in Gujarat in Shaipur district of Madhya Pradesh? potential. Lions may sit on top of the food chain, but thunder in the forest suggests that the cheetah has excluded them at the virgin conservation stakes.The notification of the July 30, the forest department announced the renaming of ‘Lion Project’ in ‘Cheetah Project’ in MP’s Kuno National Park, and its director turned to “Field Director, Cheetah Project, Shivpuri”, suspects many people that Asian lions would not be considered their second house in India after Zir.However, while the Kuno effectively becomes the protection of the ambitious cheetah re -organization program launched by PM Narendra Modi in 2022, the official word on it is that the Sher project has not been filtered.Additional Chief Secretary (Forest) Ashok Barnwal told TOI, “This is procedural reorganization. No post has been abolished. The posts have been renamed for better conservation targeting.”Another senior officer, who did not want to name, said it was done to “reduce international communication” as the virgins were now recognized globally with the project cheetah.Waiting for a three -decadeThe idea of ​​building a house for the Asian lion beyond Gujarat returned in the 1980s when wildlife scientists warned that GIR alone could not protect the species. Field Studies by the Dehradun-based wildlife institute of India more than a decade recognized Kuno as the most suitable site for the transfer of lions.In April 2013, the Asiatic Lion Retraction Project was formally launched by the Supreme Court to remove some fall lions by the Supreme Court. The court specifically asked the Center to set up the virgin as the second house of the endangered Asian lion in India.The serial state government in Gujarat refused to allow the lions to be transferred from the GIR, insisting that they were safe in their original housing and alleging that the topography of the Kuno was not favorable for their existence. Gujarat officials described Gir Lions as the “pride” of the state and filed a review and remedial petition, both were rejected by the apex court. Little, inserted into ecological concerns, was widely seen as a mixture of politics and reputation. The Center maintained a strict silence, and the project got trapped in a maze of bureaucratic files, expert committee recommendations and periodic field reports.Cheetah center takes stageSince the first batch of the African cheetah landed in Kuno in Namibia and South Africa in 2022, the only mention of the pending plan to transfer GIR to lions was in a state government audit last year.The audit report states, “Cheetahs were not part of the Kuno Management Plan,”According to the official management plan for a period of 2020–21 to 2029–30, the virgins were to be named a secondary housing for Asian lions. “By November 2023, no attempt was made towards re -construction of lions,” the audit reports said.The audit also talks about the missing reports to a three -member team appointed by SC on January 28, 2020. The team was required to submit four-masical surveys and recommendations on the sites for the African Cheetah. The report said that these reports were not found in the records of One Division to prevent verification of the facts presented in the Supreme Court.
