The Pugdundee Conservation Cell executed three interesting and important activates around Panna National Park between September and October 2009.

• 1. Annual Training of lodge naturalists.
• 2. Training of Panna National Park Guides in recognizing Tracks and Signs of wildlife.
• 3. Initiated work on creating connectivity between Panna Tiger Reserve and other adjoining forested areas.

The annual training of Pugdundee naturalists.

Left to right: Lodge naturalists and park guides during the training session on tracks & signs and observing wildlife on foot.

Between 1st of October and 14th of October 2009, 15 Lodge naturalists and 10 park guides were trained by Shekhar Kolipaka in wildlife field skills. The park guides were included in the training when Mr. Sreenivasa Murthy, Director Panna Tiger Reserve requested their training in field skills. The training included sessions of observing wildlife behaviour and taking notes of wildlife observations, watching animals on foot, making wildlife presentations, classroom sessions on taxonomy, tourism and conservation issues and others. The entire training went uneventful except for one of the trainees who feel sick because of the grueling schedules, continuous rain and long field work. The enthusiasm of the trainees is worth mentioning and they promised to maintain regular records of wildlife observations during the course of the season. The next naturalists training program is scheduled for January – February 2010.

The Five National Parks in the central Indian landscape. Panna N.P, Bandhavgadh N.P, Kanha N.P, Pench N.P and Satpura N.P

Map showing the five Tiger reserves in M.P.

The five National Parks of Madhya Pradesh are also declared Tiger reserves. Unfortunately the National Parks are isolated islands of vegetation. Dispersing wildlife have no option but to traverse through farmland and other lands under human use and are highly vulnerable to poaching and other human actions. In 2009 we have seen complete annihilation of the tiger population in Panna Tiger reserve. The tigers were poached for their skins and bones, some poisoned by villagers and others victims of illegal sport hunting. The future of the forests and wildlife of the region lay in the hands of the locals. Isolated and disconnected forest chunks simply cannot sustain viable wildlife populations. With this as backdrop I visited Panna looking for windows of opportunity to address the issues of connectivity between various vegetation patches. Connecting Pannas’ forests with those of Pahad and connecting Pahad to Bandhavgadhs’ forest is essential especially for dispersing large carnivores like tigers, leopards and wild dogs.

September 24th , 2009- Meeting an old acquaintance.

On reaching Panna I was thrilled to learn that my old acquaintance from the forest department Mr. Sreenivasa Murthy has been deputed as the Director of the Panna Tiger reserve. I learnt from him that he was looking at ways of addressing the issues of security of the reserve and he too was under the impression that unless the locals actively participated in the conservation of the wilderness areas of Panna the reserve had no future. I was thrilled to know that I had a partner to work with and we had overlapping interest in the area. Mr. Murthy was looking at the security issues surrounding the reserve and I was looking at ways to create connectivity between Pannas’ forests and those of Pahad.

September 29th 2009 - A group discussion that opened windows of opportunity.

Mr. Murthy, Mr. Shyamender Singh (Vini raja) and I sat down for a discussion on the security issues surrounding Panna. Mr. Murthy clearly felt that influential people living around the reserve hunt wildlife and during their forays into the forests would definitely fire at a large cat if they saw one. My observations in Panna point to a fact that the forested areas that exist out side the Protected area are over exploited by the locals for their fuel wood, grazing and timber needs. Forested areas with any mentionable value remain only in National Parks and these areas are the target for the locals. The forest based needs of the locals is a real time necessity and people simply cannot survive with out these, however no attempts have been made by the authorities to address the needs of the locals. The influential people or “Power people” who provide 365 days of employment to hundreds of local villagers have the support and loyalty of the villagers and the only way to address the villagers is to approach them through the local Power People. The stakeholders of the Panna region have always worked and existed in isolation. Mistrust between various stakeholders and lack of communication between them have deteriorated relationships. But the stakeholders have conveniently found ways to operate and manage to fulfill their needs. They evolved survival strategies that enabled co-existence with little stakeholder interaction. We came to a conclusion that in order to address either of the two issues (security or connectivity) we first had to address the Local Power People. To successfully do this we needed a powerful local leader who could summon the local power people and address them. If the power people agreed to cooperate in the conservation of the region they could easily influence the thousands of locals they employed. Vinis’ politician father Mr. Nagendra Singh, Minister Road Works is a very powerful and respected state minister and hailed from Satna district. On requesting he agreed to get involved and we all agreed to meet to discuss the issue of Panna.

October 14th 2009- Meeting with the Minister

On the 12th I met the Minister briefly while he was visiting Vini and quickly explained our approach and requested his participation to address the local power people. With the help of my local contacts I made lists of powerful locals who we wanted to invite to a meeting addressed by the minister. The minister quickly understood the two points Mr. Krishna Murthy, Dir Panna Tiger Reserve and I were making. He agreed to join the meeting and address the powerful locals. He further went on and invited his colleague the Minister of Forests to join him for the meeting too, which the kind forest minister accepted. 5th of November has been decided as a date for the meeting and the park director and I are responsible to populate the lists of powerful locals and send invitations for the meeting. The series of events that have taken place are very vital. Involving stakeholders to secure the future of the park is the way forward, a stern foundation based on participation and dialogue to ensure the future survival of the wilderness areas of Panna.

Good quality grazing land is only found in the Panna national park
Areas out side are over grazed and degraded.

The next update on the issue will be posted as we make progress.

Shekhar Kolipaka