Project Cheetah must keep pace with legislative clarity | Hindustan Times
The killing of a 19-month-old cheetah cub in Kuno National Park in late October revived questions about Project Cheetah. The project highlights an unresolved question about wildlife restoration: What exactly should be restored when wildlife disappears? The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, conserves existing wildlife but provides little guidance on rebuilding lost ecological systems. The project seeks not only to conserve a species, but also to restore ecological functions lost when the Asiatic cheetah disappeared from India.
The 1972 Act provides a statutory basis for active conservation measures. Section 12 recognises scientific management, including translocation to suitable habitats. Project Cheetah goes beyond conventional translocation, and introduces a foreign population. (@DrMohanYadav51 X/ANI)The 1972 Act provides a statutory basis for active conservation measures. Section 12 recognises scientific management, including translocation to suitable habitats. Project Cheetah goes beyond conventional translocation, and introduces a foreign population.
This raises questions for which the law provides only partial answers. What principles should govern ecological restoration? How should source populations be selected? What degree of genetic divergence is acceptable when the original population no longer exists? Who determines ecological equivalence? What standards should govern monitoring and long-term evaluation?
The ambiguity becomes starker when the Wild Life (Protection) Act is read alongside the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. The latter recognises diversity within species, while the former defines “species” to include a species, subspecies, or geographically separate population thereof. Parliament, therefore, treated species, subspecies, and distinct populations as legally significant conservation units.
Yet, neither statute explains how those distinctions should operate in cases of restoration. If the Asiatic cheetah is gone, what does the African cheetah restore: The species, subspecies, population, genetic lineage, or just the ecological function associated with the animal? The law provides no clear answer. In which case, should India rely on a broad interpretation of the Wild Life (Protection) Act’s provisions on conservation, protection, and management of wildlife? The Act also regulates alien species. While some provisions can be interpreted to provide protection to the cheetah, there is little guidance on rebuilding ecological systems once a species disappears.
In practice, Project Cheetah has relied heavily on executive policy and scientific expertise. The National Action Plan incorporates the IUCN Guidelines for Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations, which provide standards on habitat suitability, risk assessment, monitoring, and adaptive management. Yet their authority isn’t statutory, undermining any assurance of stability for the project. The Supreme Court’s 2020 order permitting the introduction gave the project legal legitimacy. But it also exposed a significant jurisprudential gap. In the TN Godavarman litigation, the Court subjected compensatory afforestation to sustained scrutiny, helping shape the CAMPA framework. In contrast, while approving Project Cheetah, the Court laid down no comparable principles.
India possesses some building blocks of a restoration framework but in disparate legislation. What is missing is a framework that connects these elements through enforceable legal standards.
India spent decades building a legislative framework for conservation. The next challenge is to build this for restoration. Whether India develops that framework may prove consequential for the fate of Project Cheetah itself.
Sudhanshu Gupta is a retired member of the Indian Forest Service and an international member of the Forest Stewardship Council. The views expressed are personal
