Habitat Loss Worsening
P. Devarajan

On a late afternoon waiting on the banks of the River Ken in the Panna Tiger Reserve for a boat, we heard the thud of the axe against wood. Villagers were removing forest cover and there was no forest official to stop them. The dhabas at Panna use wood as fuel and most of it could have only been ...more

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The Vanishing Forests from Satpuras

Kishor Rithe

I can not see the death of our forests! During my routine travel through the forests of central Indian highlands i.e. the Satpuras, whenever I come across encroachments on forest land, my blood get heated. If somebody does it out of need, I usually meet the tribal family, try to understand the socio-economics and help the family in coping up with the situation. But most of the time when it happens at a mass scale because of some policy decision of the state or central Government, then it provokes me...more

Rain-drenched forest bristles with activity

July 23, 2006

P. Devarajan

For long, one had wanted to walk and watch a forest in the rains and that happened when Kishor Rithe took me round my favourite tiger sanctuary blessed by the Tadoba Deo, the resident tribal god. One has not visited many sanctuaries but for me Tadoba is the best, far ahead...more

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Breakfast with birds in pristine surroundings

P. Devarajan

July 25, 2006

William Barrett in an introductory essay to the Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki,Zen Buddhism, writes: "For the readers of this book the question will hardly arise of becoming a Buddhist, but that does not lessen the importance of Zen to them... " In the beautiful words of the Master Hoyen:...more

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`Toughest climb' in an unexplored range

P. Devarajan 

Pachmarhi Wildlife Sanctuary (Madhya Pradesh, India) ON an afternoon we started out on the long steep climb in our Gypsy from Dhain village (now resettled) in Bori Sanctuary in Hosangabad district to Pachmarhi Wildlife Sanctuary. Bori sanctuary is deep in the valley closed in by the Satpura mountain range, while the popular Pachmarhi sanctuary is at the top. The kuchha road paved with stones and mud has been cut out from the rocks and the journey takes one up to a height of around 4,000 ft past the still unexplored Satpura range. The distance of about 60 km took us about four hours....more

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Relocating tribals from sanctuary

P. Devarajan

BORI Wildlife Sanctuary is the country's first reserve forest declared in 1867after Captain James Forsyth surveyed the area. The dry deciduous forest is well packed with teak, charoli, ain, bamboo, arjun, mango and other trees, and largely resembles, for anyone caring to visit, the Melghat Tiger Sanctuary and others in the Satpura range. Captain Forsyth in The Highlands of Central India puts down a dainty piece of history about Satpura. He writes: "In the local Sivite Mythology, the Narbada is the maiden Mykal-Kanya, daughter of the Mykal Mountain, from whose brow she springs....more

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Depictions on the Buddhist way

P. Devarajan

At around 6 on a cold morning we set out from Churna in 
Bori Wildlife Sanctuary to Mhadai in Satpuda National Park
in the fond hope of seeing a tiger. We peered into walls 
of mist and for some time there were no forests nor were 
there any tigers.... more

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Hope for the Hardground Barasingha!

By Kishor Rithe  

It was a bright sunny April afternoon. The fragrance of mahua flowers wafted through the tiger forests of Kanha, while the trees shed sal flowers and nectar in a gentle never-ending rain. The forest floor glittered with fallen droplets of nectar. We were driving from Mukki to the Sondhar meadow in search of the rarest deer of the central Indian highlands, the Barasingha Cervus duvauceli branderi.  ...more

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The Satpuras

Kishor Rithe and Ashish Fernandes

We looked down the vertical rocks, into the depths of the gorge along the Mahadeo road. Somewhere down there tigers lived in peace, away from human intrusion. Sheer inaccessibility has meant that the Bori-Satpura Tiger Reserve harbours some of the most remote wildlife habitats in central India. The monsoon rains still lingered and the shimmer of water from the rivulet that gurgled below was barely visible through the curtain of green and moist vegetation. Extending across 1,486 sq. km. and comprising Pachmarhi Wildlife Sanctuary, Satpura National Park and Bori Wildlife Sanctuary, the Bori-Satpura Tiger Reserve was declared in 1999...more

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Developing or destroying?

Ashish Fernandes

FDCM operations are harming the state’s wildlife by wiping out key habitats, amputating wildlife corridors essential for the genetic viability of species including the tiger. In the Nagpur division alone, the FDCM plans to clear-fell approximately 6,500 to 7,000 ha. of prime wildlife habitat. With the loss of surrounding forests, biotic pressure on existing protected areas from grazing and fuel wood collection increases. more

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Saving the Forest Owlet

Kishor Rithe

The village was cool and silent. Dawn was breaking as we prepared to leave Raipur village in the Melghat Tiger Reserve for the Chaurakund range. It promised to be a pleasant morning. The drive was silent and ghost-like, as we kept our eyes peeled for wildlife. Driving through Melghat on such serene mornings is a true pleasure and the chances of seeing both nocturnal and diurnal creatures are high during this transitional period...more

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The Illegal Antler Trade

Kishor Rithe and Ashish Fernandes

Antlers – an evolutionary means of defence and a benchmark for better gene selection – have become a death sentence for thousands of deer claimed by the illegal antler trade every year. Two years after the Government of India banned all trade in deer antlers, large seizures continue to be made with alarming regularity. On Friday January 25, 2002, a flat in Nagpur’s Pratap Nagar area yielded the second largest antler seizure ever in India, totalling 6,428 kg. The export quality material, valued at about Rs. 6.5 lakhs, had been cut up and consisted of both sambar and chital antlers. A pair of chital antlers weighs approximately one to three kilogrammes and a sambar pair between six to 10 kg....more

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Maharashtra’s tiger troubles

Kishor Rithe and Ashish Fernandes

Maharashtra’s tigers are in decline. The conservation communities’ worst fears have been substantiated by the latest figures from the Maharashtra Forest Department. The figures from the 2001 statewide wildlife population estimation reveal that the state’s tiger population is now estimated to be 238, down from 257 in 1997, when the last estimation was conducted. Only 155 of the 238 tigers are estimated to be within the Protected Area (PA) network. ...more

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Mission: Melghat...A forest to die for

Kishor Rithe

I still remember that day 10 years ago.  It was one of Vidarbha’s hottest summers and water was scarce in the Melghat Tiger Reserve. That was why we gratefully accepted the advice and hospitality of the Field Director who suggested we sit over waterholes on machans, in the hope of seeing a tiger. Dusk had not yet set in and I had dropped off the last of several nature camp participants to selected waterholes after instructing them carefully as to how they should and should not behave. I myself chose to sit with two youngsters at the Fitakaripani waterhole. En route we had seen herds of gaur, sambar, chital and two magnificent barking deer. It had already been a great wildlife outing and whatever else was in store for us would be a pure bonus....more

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The Problem of Pench

Kishor Rithe and Ashish Fernandes

“That looks like a croc’s burrow!” Not quite the words you want to hear when you’re enjoying a dip in a river. Half-expecting a prank, we turned and saw what did indeed look like, and must have been, a croc burrow. Not a very big croc perhaps, but a croc nonetheless. Of course, no croc will attack a human without provocation, so we kept our distance and continued to soak in the atmosphere of the magnificent forests of Pench, surely some of the finest in Central India. ...more

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They want phones…

Kishor Rithe

It was the winter of 1990 when I first visited Melghat’s Bori village with Praveen Pardeshi. He was then the Chief Executive Officer of the Amravati Zilla Parishad, an IAS officer and a dedicated wildlifer as well. The village comprised around 21 dwellings and small agricultural fields and was surrounded on three sides by hills covered with dry deciduous teak forests typical of Melghat. This was just outside the border of the famous Gugamal National Park in the Melghat Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra. We had been trekking and had seen gaur, sambar, peacock and then some grey jungle fowl, just before reaching the periphery of Bori village....more

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On the trail of the wild buffalo

Kishor Rithe and Ashish Fernandes

The air was moist and humid and sweat poured off us as we climbed the rough dirt road that wound up the thickly forested hill. We had been walking for a little over an hour and were now deep into the forest. Tall bamboo clumps towered 15 m. above us, interspersed with the gnarled trunks of ancient forest giants. Tiger scat in the middle of the road drew our attention and, as we started to move on, there was a flash of brown in the canopy… a giant squirrel, leaping nimbly from branch to branch until it reached the sanctuary of its nest. That was to be the first of eight giant squirrel sightings in the Kolamarkha forest, one of India’s richest...more

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Yawal - Jewel in the crown of the Khandesh

Kishor Rithe

As we crunched across the dry bed of the Mandap ‘nullah’ (which turns into a major river during the rains) a covey of Grey Jungle Fowl not 10 metres from our vehicle drew our attention. Stopping the Gypsy, I did not even have time to focus on the birds before they vanished into the thick undergrowth. Almost immediately, I heard a flock of Rufous Babblers, uncommon in the Satpuras, in a bamboo clump bordering the nullah. And that was when I heard the continuous, long, loud whistle from a bare kadhai tree that explained the agitation of all these birds. It was an immature Crested Hawk Eagle. I was astounded by the sheer richness of the birdlife. ...more