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[Rishi]

Further development on MP Tiger corridor 
The Madhya Pradesh government plans to create 11 new satellite habitats to aid tiger dispersal mitigate man-animal conflict.

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The Madhya Pradesh government has an ambitious plan to create at least 11 new protected areas within the state. The state is currently home to 24 sanctuaries and 11 national parks, covering 11,393 sq. km of forests. About 5,400 sq. km of forests have been notified as buffer areas around the six tiger reserves in MP, taking the total protected area to just under 16,800 sq. km of the state’s approximately 94,000 sq. km of forests.
These new protected areas, covering almost than 2,500 sq. km, represent perhaps the largest addition of protected areas attempted by any state in the past three decades.

After an initial push in the 1970s and ’80s, the creation of new protected areas took a backseat. This was largely due to resistance from local communities who felt that their rights would be curtailed, as well as concern on the part of governments that protected areas would be detrimental to development’, as a result of the many clearances required.
However, emboldened by the success of its tiger protection programme, the 2018 tiger census recorded 526 big cats in the state, the highest in the country, earning MP the tag of India’s tiger state’, the state government has decided to create new protected areas again.

These new areas have been dubbed designer sanctuaries’ by policy-makers, as they have been identified while keeping potentially contentious aspects such as human habitation and minor forest produce (MFP) collection rights in mind. In the proposal prepared by the state forest department and being put to the cabinet MP government has used information technology & satellite remotesensing data to identify areas that do not contain private land and habitations for the new sanctuaries. Moreover, since the areas to be included are already designated as reserve forests, the state government does not need to carry out the settlement of rights’ process that is mandated under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. This allows the government to avoid the contentious process of public consultation.

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According to the sources of the forest department, the sites in the state have been selected to make the forest sanctuary include Mandu (Dhar), Sheopur, Sagar, Sehore, Narsinghpur, Harda, Indore, Burhanpur, Barwah, Omkareshwar and Mandla.
In these places, the sanctuary of the state will be connected to the border sanctuaries. Such as the sanctuary of Burhanpur and Harda will be connected to Melghat in Maharashtra. Sheopur's sanctuary will be connected to Ranthambore in Rajasthan.

Mandu, Indore, Barwah, Omkareshwar and Sehore have been selected under cluster approach. Under this scheme special attention will also be given to the scheme of groundwater recharge. Reply