The Samrakshan Trust

Samrakshan in Sanskrit means protection or conservation. The guiding principle of the Samrakshan Trust is to find paths for humankind to live in harmony with nature. The main objectives of Samrakshan's activities are to promote and propagate conservation of wildlife, forests and the environment, specially in and around National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries in India; and to involve communities in processes of empowerment through sustainable development. The Trust's logo, Ganesha, the supreme protector, also symbolizes this confluence and harmony between humans and animals.

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Before Samrakshan

The Kuno wildlife sanctuary project of Samrakshan traces its origin to path-breaking research in the Gir protected area of Gujarat by the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. The study shows that the world's last wild population of Asiatic Lions in Gir is facing various extinction threats from potential natural calamities and epidemics. In order to counter this, the institute recommended that a second home be established for Asiatic lions in an area away from Gir, yet part of its original range. After a process of short-listing and evaluation, Kuno sanctuary in north west Madhya Pradesh was found to be most suitable for this purpose.

Preparing a Second Home for Asiatic Lions

To prepare Kuno to receive a lion population from Gir, a number of steps needed to be taken, including the relocation of villages that existed inside Kuno sanctuary. This was found essential to prevent conflict between people and a megacarnivore like the lion. The Madhya Pradesh forest department undertook to execute this project with financial support from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

Given the poor track record of resettlement & rehabilitation (R&R) in the country to date, and immence ecological significance of this project, two of Samrakshan's present trustees undertook research into various aspects of village relocation from this sanctuary. The single most important finding of their study was the need for a third party to intervene in the village relocation process, in the capacity of watchdog and bridge-builder between the villagers and the forest department. This is how Samrakshan Trust was born in August 1999.

The Trust has attempted to build bridges between the people living on the periphery of the sanctuary and various government authorities in order to marry conservation imperatives with the survival needs of these people. In conjunction with the forest department and the district administration the Samrakshan team has been working on core issues like agricultural improvement, irrigation, watershed development and access to drinking water with the aim of minimizing the trauma of displacement. The Samrakshan team has also initiated a programme to estimate the dependence of other villages on the periphery of Kuno on the natural resource base of the sanctuary. The results of this study are expected to feed into a field intervention that will assist such villages to limit their dependence upon the sanctuary.

In addition to addressing rehabilitation and people related issues, Samrakshan has also been lobbying with the wide range agencies to bring to the project various inputs critical to the larger lion reintroduction programme. In particular, it has been working closely with sceintists from the Wildlife Institute of India, the concerned division of the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the state government of MP. They believe that the people living in and around Kuno are making a sacrifice to give the lion a second chance. Samrakshan is commited to ensuring that this sacrifice does not go in vain and that the king roars in Kuno again.