Gujarat’s Project Lion gets Centre’s nod

AHMEDABAD: Following vehement opposition by the Gujarat government, the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change has rejected Wildlife Institute of India’s ‘Recovery and Conservation of Endangered Lions in Gujarat’ project, which was to be monitored by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). In its place, the Centre has approved the Rs 351 crore proposal for Project Lion submitted by the Gujarat government.

“We were told by several officials that they had reservations about NTCA being the monitoring agency. The state is reported to have represented against NTCA monitoring in lion conservation, and the WII proposal was rejected,” said a senior official from the Union forest ministry.


The state’s Project Lion involves building a veterinary hospital in Sasan, lion rescue centres, deployment of drones to keep track of lions and wildlife, recruitment of 100-odd trackers, building 33 rapid response teams, and installing CCTV cameras at forest entry points for lion conservation. The state government has prepared the project keeping in mind local needs, said a senior Gujarat forest department official.

Principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife) A K Saxena said, “The Union forest ministry has communicated to us that the Gujarat project has been accepted and will be funded by the ministry. The project, which was sent after the CDV outbreak will ensure that conservation of lions gets a boost. We have added veterinary treatment and disease monitoring in the project. I am not aware of the WII project but can only say that the project submitted by Gujarat has been accepted.”

Senior officials from the WII said that after the outbreak of the canine distemper virus (CDV) disease in which 27 lions died, the Union forest ministry had asked the WII to prepare a project for conserving lions in Gujarat. The WII had prepared a detailed project and submitted the same to the ministry, which in its turn sought the opinion of the state government.

The officer said that the state government and the forest department did not agree to supervision by NTCA which was to monitor the project prepared by the WII. The WII project included lion translocation to Barda, deployment of GSM/satellite-VHF radio collars enabled with virtual fence on each lion pride outside the Gir protected areas and implementation of MSTrIPES patrol module in the lion landscape. MSTrIPES is the monitoring software developed by WII and implemented in the tiger landscape in coordination with NTCA.