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Deals For Cheetahs

UPSC CURRENT AFFAIRS | INDIA FINALIZES DEALS FOR CHEETAHS FROM SOUTH AFRICA AND NAMIBIA | 2ND JUNE | HINDUSTAN TIMES

/ June, 2022, UPSC Daily Current Affairs

SYLLABUS SECTION: GS III (ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY)

WHY IN THE NEWS?

  • Recently, the government has finalized Deals for Cheetahs to get the planet’s fastest animals.
  • That became extinct in the country in the middle of the last century.
  • This would initiate India’s ambitious plan of transcontinental relocation of cheetahs.

 

Key Details from the Deal:

  • The project to translocate cheetahs from Africa to India is a long-term, one-time project.
  • This project is being implementing by the Ministry of an environment with the help of the Wildlife Institute of India.
  • This project aims to reintroduce the cheetah into the wild, which became extinct in India in the 1950s.
  • India will release cheetahs from South Africa and Namibia.
  • Into the wild at Kuno Palpur in the Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh, by the end of 2022.

Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary:

  • Kuno Palpur is the only wildlife sanctuary in the world to host all four major cat species—lion, tiger, cheetah, and leopard.
  • It has been chosen as the most suitable place as this sanctuary has ample natural habitat for the cheetah in the form of grasslands, savannahs, and open woodland with evergreen riverine ravines.
  • This plan was obstruct by the Supreme court of India in the year 2012 to initiate African cheetahs in the Kuno Palpur sanctuary.
  • This was because of various factors that are
  1. The cheetah project may come in conflict with the parallel project to reintroduce the lions into the same sanctuary and the priority was given to the preservation of our own species.
  2. It was a matter of concern whether the cheetah would find the sanctuary favorable for the abundance of prey or not.
  3. And whether the man-animal conflict would be there or not.
Cheetah:
  • The cheetah is the keystone species of the dry forests, scrub forests, and Savannahs.
  • A keystone species is one that has an extremely high impact on a particular ecosystem relative to its population.
  • It has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment. The cheetah was announcing officially extinct in India in the year 1952.
  • According to International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), the cheetah can be of two types- Asiatic cheetah and African cheetah.
  • The Asiatic cheetah is critically endangering in that is it survives only in Iran whereas the African cheetah is vulnerable as per the IUCN.

Cause of Extinction:

  • human-wildlife conflict,
  • loss of habitat,
  • loss of prey and
  • illegal trafficking.

DEALS FOR CHEETAHS

Significance of the Relocation:
  • As a flagship species, the conservation of the cheetah will revive grasslands and its biomes and habitat, much like Project Tiger has done for forests.
  • Flagship species are species whose conservation is assumed to correlate positively with the protection of other species.
  • Help in saving other endangered species of the grasslands and open forest ecosystems, some of which are on the brink of extinction.
  • It will help in enhancing the local community’s livelihoods through eco-tourism prospects.

Read more: UPSC CURRENT AFFAIRS

Source: Hindustan Times