The Kanha-Pench Landscape
The Satpura-Maikal region consists of seven tiger reserves and five corridors stretching through three states (Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh) in central India. The area is one of the country’s strongholds of wildlife protection and natural resource-based livelihoods. Within this large region sits the Kanha-Pench landscape, which includes Kanha and Pench Tiger Reserves and the forested land between them in Mandla, Balaghat and Seoni districts in Madhya Pradesh. The Kanha-Pench landscape has been the focus of extensive and diverse research conducted in the region, as well as active government support to establish the region as a wildlife corridor, making it an ideal case-study for other areas in the Satpura-Maikal region and throughout India.
The Kanha-Pench landscape provides important ecosystem services through its hydrology (e.g. part of the area is a watershed for River Narmada) and biodiversity (e.g. the parks support endangered and vulnerable species such as tiger and hard-ground barasingha). A diversity of human communities utilize the forests in the area with varying intensity, ranging from minimal forest extraction in reserves to rapid road, agriculture and mining development outside protected areas. The Kanha-Pench landscape thus requires active research and management to ensure sustainable livelihoods for people and protection of the wildlife alike, and offers an ideal case study of the complex environmental and social issues facing the Satpura-Maikal region, and India at large.
The Kanha-Pench Landscape Symposium will bring together researchers, NGO conservationists and managers to innovate collaborative ways to generate science-informed conservation across this important landscape.
The Kanha-Pench landscape provides important ecosystem services through its hydrology (e.g. part of the area is a watershed for River Narmada) and biodiversity (e.g. the parks support endangered and vulnerable species such as tiger and hard-ground barasingha). A diversity of human communities utilize the forests in the area with varying intensity, ranging from minimal forest extraction in reserves to rapid road, agriculture and mining development outside protected areas. The Kanha-Pench landscape thus requires active research and management to ensure sustainable livelihoods for people and protection of the wildlife alike, and offers an ideal case study of the complex environmental and social issues facing the Satpura-Maikal region, and India at large.
The Kanha-Pench Landscape Symposium will bring together researchers, NGO conservationists and managers to innovate collaborative ways to generate science-informed conservation across this important landscape.
Photo: Jennie Miller.
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Photo: Ruth DeFries.
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Photo: Pinki Mondal.
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