Gujarat will lose its status as the world’s only home for wild Asiatic lions. The Supreme Court ordered that some of the lions should be moved to Kuno wildlife sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, brushing aside the Narendra Modi government’s passionate resistance to the move.
The court asked the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to take urgent steps for reintroduction of a small number of lions to Kuno from Gir on the grounds that the highly-endangered species needed to be dispersed to eliminate the risk of extinction in case of an epidemic outbreak.
The court said the relocation exercise should be undertaken under the watch of a multi-member expert body and should be completed in six months.
Responding to the Gujarat government’s argument that lions should not be moved out of Gujarat, a bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and C K Prasad said: “No state, organization or person can claim ownership or possession over wild animals in the forest. Animals in the wild are properties of the nation for which no state can claim ownership and the state’s duty is to protect wildlife and conserve it…”
Agreeing with senior advocate Raj Panjwani, counsel for the petitioner, NGO Centre for Environment Law, the bench said, “The cardinal issue is not whether the Asiatic lion is a ‘family member’ or is part of ‘Indian culture and civilization’, or is ‘the pride of a state’.” The main issue was to see what was in the best interest of the endangered species, it added.
If Justices Radhakrishnan and C K Prasad hurt the Narendra Modi government’s pride by ordering a second home for Asiatic lions, it also dealt a death blow to the ambitious yet ill thought out project of the MoEF to import the African cheetah from Namibia and relocate it in Kuno along with lions to create something similar to the vast grasslands of Africa where both carnivores share the same hunting arena teeming with a diverse prey base.
Referring to poaching and human intervention rendering several species critically endangered, the bench directed the Centre to take urgent steps for the preservation of the great Indian bustard, Bengal florican, dugong, Manipur brow-antlered deer, Asiatic lion and wild buffalo, and initiate recovery programmes. While ordering the lion relocation, the court took lessons from a calamitous canine distemper disease outbreak which had wiped out 85% of the lion population in Tanzania’s Serengeti national park in 1994. It said compared to Serengeti, the lion population in Gir was concentrated in a much smaller area and a similar disease could play havoc with the endangered species’ population.
At the same time, the court also praised the Gujarat government’s efforts to protect lions resulting in an increase in their population and habitation area. It accepted Madhya Pradesh counsel Vibha Datta Makhija’s submissions about preparations done at Kuno to receive the lions which included increasing the prey base.
Twitterati
After Tigers, now Lions will roar in jungles of Madhya Pradesh. A new home awaits them…
I welcome Supreme Court’s verdict on Asiatic Lions. We are well-equipped to welcome them in their new home. #MP Shivraj Singh Chouhan - CM, MP
Ramesh Srivats @rameshsrivats The deer in MP must be hoping these Gujarati lions are vegetarian. They can finally have a drink.
Debkanchan Mitra @ debkanchan SC orders lions of Gir forest to be transfered to MP’s jungle , but #feku is a lion of Gujarat so will be transfered too
No comments:
Post a Comment