What are National Parks? Where was India’s first National Park setup?
India is the world’s second most populous country. An explosion of population and increased human activity has put enormous pressure on India’s forest land. Humans have relentlessly trespassed into forest, cut trees for firewood and furniture and cleared forest land for agriculture.
Destruction of forests has a direct impact on all of its inhabitants. When trees are cut down, birds have no place to roost and their nests are easily exposed to predators. Cattle from human settlements graze on forest meadows leaving no grass for forest animals such as deer’s and antelopes. This in turn puts pressure on the larger carnivores in the forest. With no food to sustain them, carnivores such as tigers are forced out of forest into human settlements for food. Man-animal conflicts arise and in almost all cases result in the killing of the animal.
National Parks are protected forest areas setup with an aim of conserving the ecology in that area. Each of these parks have unique flora, fauna and wildlife that has to be preserved from extinction. No human activity is permitted within the national parks.
India’s National Parks
Jim Corbett national park was the first such protected forest area in India. Established in 1936, the park is named after the legendary British hunter-turned-conservationist Jim Corbett. The park is home to many endangered species including our national animal, the tiger, and the Asiatic elephant. The Ramganga river, a tributary to the Ganga, provides water all round the year to the residents of the forest.
| Did you know… |
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| When Jim Corbett park was established, its original name was Hailey Park. Sir Hailey was the then Governor of the United Provinces in British India. Post independence it was first renamed to Ramganga national park and then finally to Jim Corbett park in 1956. When Hailey park was created, it was Asia’s first national park! |
As of 2019 survey, India has 101 national parks covering 1.2% of the total area of the country. Exactly how big is this? This is roughly 40,000 square kilometers. Slightly bigger than the state of Haryana. Or a little larger than the entire country of Netherlands!
Protected Areas
National Parks are not the only way to protect trees and wildlife. India has other protected areas such as marine protected areas, wildlife sanctuaries and conservation reserves. Confused with all the terms? Let’s see how they are different:
National parks, as we have seen, protects the overall ecology of a region. This includes all living beings – wildlife, flora, fauna – AND also the surrounding environment and its history. No human activity is allowed.
Wildlife sanctuaries, as the name indicates, are formed to protect wildlife. E.g. the Thattekad Bird Sanctuary in Kerala. Human activity is allowed to some extent.
Animals move about through forests and between forests in search of water and food. A conservation reserve is a protected area that acts as a migration corridor and a buffer zone between national parks or wildlife sanctuaries. Such reserves are co-managed by the Government with the local community. E.g. Jayamangali Blackbuck reserve, Karnataka. Human activity is allowed.
Notable national parks
While a wide variety of species reside in each national park, most of the parks have a specific species that it is more famous far.
| National Park | Famous Residents |
|---|---|
| Bandipur National Park, Karnataka | Tiger, Elephants, Leopard |
| Bandhavgarh National Park, Madhya Pradesh | Tiger |
| Desert National Park, Rajasthan | Great Indian Bustard |
| Gir National Park, Gujarat | Asiatic lion |
| Gulf of Mannar National Park, Tamil Nadu | Wide variety of sea life including dugongs and turtles |
| Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand | Tiger, Elephants, Leopard |
| Kanha National Park, Madhya Pradesh | Tiger, Barasingha, Leopard |
| Kaziranga National Park, Assam | Indian Rhino, Tigers, Elephants |
| Keoladeo National Park, Rajasthan | Birds, especially migratory birds in winter. Formerly known as Bharatpur bird sanctuary |
| Marine National Park, Gujarat | Corals, Portugese man of war, jelly fish, sting rays and many other varieties of marine life. India’s first marine park |
| Nanda Devi National Park, Uttarakhand | Inner Himalayas, Nanda Devi Peak and the Valley of Flowers |
| Pench National Park, Madhya Pradesh | Tigers, Leopard |
| Rani Jhansi Marine Park, Andaman & Nicobar Islands | Coral reefs, lagoons and mangrove forests. Star resident is the fruit-eating bat |
| Silent Valley National Park, Kerala | Lion tailed macaque. This park gets its name from the absence of cicadas, the forest is eerily silent |
| Did you know… |
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| Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book was based on wildlife, flora and fauna of the Pench national park, Madhya Pradesh. If you get a chance to visit Pench or Kanha parks in Madhya Pradesh, do keep an eye out for Ka and Sher Khan! |
Big and Small
India’s biggest national park is the ‘Hemis national park’ in Ladakh. Spread over 3500 sq.km, Hemis is the home of the elusive Snow Leopard. The terrain is rugged and winters can get very brutal here, with temperatures dropping down to -25o/-30o Celsius.
And the smallest one? Mandla national park in Madhya Pradesh, with 0.27 sq.km. area, is India’s smallest park. This park is famous for plant fossils and has fossilized remains of plants that are a 100 million years old! Mandla is an example of a national park where the focus is on conservation of the ecology and history of a place, there is no special focus on a particular animal or bird.
| Did you know… |
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| An interesting find in the Mandla park are the fossilized remains of molluscs. Molluscs are invertebrates with a soft body covered by a hardened shell. Snails, for example, fall in the category of molluscs. |
Project Tiger
Why the focus on Tiger
When it comes to wildlife conservation, protecting the apex predator is crucial. The apex predator sits at the top of the food chain. If this predator has to survive, it needs enough prey. These prey are herbivores, i.e. they feed on grass, shrubs and other vegetation. Having a good prey population to feed the apex predator would effectively need the forest grasslands and trees and flora to be protected.
In India, the topmost predator across any forest land is the Tiger. Tigers are very territorial and live solitary lives. Each tiger patrols a large territory and defends it from other tigers.
| Did you know… |
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| Many studies have been done to identify the home range area for a tiger. This is the area that a tiger marks as its own territory and defends. In the past, the home range was about 200 sq.km. With shrinking forest areas, tigers have had to adjust and their home range has shrunk to about 25 sq.km. |
Protect the tiger, provide it enough prey and enough territory to roam around and we would have protected our wildlife. But that was easier said than done. An exploding human population has pushed man into the forest destroying the tigers habitat. Human-wildlife conflicts have increased and tigers have faced its biggest brunt.
Protecting the Tiger
Project Tiger was launched in 1973 to help arrest the decline in tiger population. Tiger reserves were created throughout the country for this purpose. Each tiger reserve is a protected forest area which has at its heart a core area that is designated as a national park. Around the core is a buffer area. As with all national parks, no human activity is allowed in the core area.
Project Tiger has had moderate success over the years. At the time of independence, there were around 40,000 tigers in the country. Numbers had dipped to few hundreds at the turn of the century. With focused efforts at conservation, and a better appreciation of the importance of tigers to the overall ecosystem, their population have stabilized. Today we have about 3,000 tigers in the wild.
| Did you know… |
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| You would have heard about IAS and IPS officers who are responsible for managing our government offices and police system. Similarly, there is a dedicated set of officers who are responsible for managing India’s forest and wildlife heritage. These are the officers of the the Indian Forest Service (IFS). |
Further Reading
As always, we end our blog with a further reading & viewing section. I would encourage all our readers to take the time to see the wonderful videos and insightful articles linked here.
Get warmed up with this awe inspiring video about Karnataka’s wildlife. Produced by the Karnataka wildlife department in partnership with Disney network, it has Sir Attenborough’s voice over. Can’t get any better than this!
Want to know how much of India is covered by forests and how we compare with other countries? The authoritative document on this is the Indian government’s ‘India State of Forest Report’ or ISFR. Do read the summary at the beginning to get the overall idea. Section 1.7 compares India with other countries in area under forest cover. Further chapters in the report go into more details on specific forest types.
Curious as to what areas of India are marked as protected areas? The full list of protected areas including national park, sanctuaries and reserves is here.
Do you like maps and are you interested in seeing the forest and ecological wealth of India through maps? Head to ISRO’s Bhuvan mapping platform. Select the information you are looking for in the left pane and see them marked-up in the map.
Government of India’s status report on Tiger conservation is published here. It’s a lengthy report, but lookup page # 34 for how tigers are distributed across national parks. And, of course, look out for the stunning pictures of tigers and other wildlife across the country.
A scholarly article on the tiger home range, and how small it has reduced to, in Pench reserve, Madhya Pradesh, can be read here.
