The crusader who helped cause of lion translocation

In 2006, Fayaz Khudsar decided enough was enough and filed public interest litigation with the Supreme Court seeking specific directions to the Gujarat government for saving India’s unique wildlife heritage; seven years down the line, the SC concurred with Khudsar’s view, Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 16, 2013, 24:27:50 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A young student of biology from Delhi University, Fayaz Khudsar, was part of a study trip to Kuno Palpur in 1999, when he was told that the huge grassland would soon be second home for Asiatic lions from Gujarat.

For the next seven years, he visited the landscape several times but the ambitious project had got stuck with Narendra Modi’s Gujarati pride. In 2006, Khudsar decided to file a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking specific directions to the Gujarat government for the saving India’s unique wildlife heritage.

Seven years later, the apex court on Monday concurred with Khudsar’s view and directed the Gujarat government to part with lions from Gir in a phased manner for Kuno Palpur. “It was not a fight against a state government. I just wanted long term survival for lions so that our future generations can also see them,” he told HT after attending the hearing in the Supreme Court. “I am glad that the SC had delivered a historic judgment and Gujarat’s pride will get a second home in MP”.

Fayaz believes he has not done anything extra-ordinary and said that he was just paid back his debt to Kuno and its unique grassland. “My association with Kuno dates back to 1999 and I did my doctorate based on research on biodiversity and prey base there with special focus on Asiatic lions,” he said.

Delhi-based wildlife biologist Khudsar can claim credit for scrapping of the ecologically fragile cheetah project backed by environment ministry. It was on his application that the court constituted an independent expert committee to scientifically examine the Cheetah project. Based on the report, the court described the project as “illegal”.

He describes the court judgment as landmark as it also speaks about providing new homes for many other endangered species.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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