Assam’s proposal to limit the Eco-Sensitive Zone around Kaziranga National Park to approximately one to three kilometres has reopened a question that matters far beyond Assam: how much space does wildlife actually need to survive?

The state government argues that the default 10-kilometre restriction around Kaziranga is affecting homes, healthcare facilities, businesses and infrastructure. Its concern cannot simply be dismissed. People living near forests require roads, schools, hospitals and opportunities to earn a livelihood.

But the opposite concern is equally serious. If the protective belt around a globally important wildlife habitat is reduced without transparent ecological evidence, the land released from regulation may gradually be opened to construction, traffic, resorts, industries, mining or other disruptive activities.

This debate should concern Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh more than most states. Their forests are not isolated green islands. They are living landscapes in which national parks, village settlements, agricultural fields, rivers, tourism businesses and wildlife corridors exist alongside one another.

What Happens in Kaziranga May Not Stay in Kaziranga

Kaziranga is famous for the one-horned rhinoceros, but the principle involved is much larger. If administrative convenience becomes the primary reason for reducing an Eco-Sensitive Zone, similar demands could emerge around other protected areas.

Madhya Pradesh is home to Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Panna, Satpura, Kuno, Sanjay-Dubri and several other ecologically important landscapes. Chhattisgarh has Achanakmar, Indravati, Udanti-Sitanadi, Bhoramdev and extensive elephant habitats that connect with forests in neighbouring states.

Development pressure is already visible around many such areas. More resorts, wider roads, power lines, mining activity and expanding settlements can bring employment and better connectivity. But they can also fragment animal movement routes, increase traffic, produce noise and light pollution, strain water sources and push wildlife closer to villages.

Once a wildlife corridor is occupied or a natural drainage system is blocked, drawing a thicker green line on a map later cannot restore it easily.

A Forest Does Not End at Its Gate

Visitors may enter Bandhavgarh or Kanha through a marked tourism gate, but a tiger does not know where the park boundary ends. Elephants moving through northern Chhattisgarh do not follow district borders. The success of cheetah conservation in Kuno will also depend on how safely animals can use the wider landscape beyond the fenced or intensively monitored area.

This is why the width of an Eco-Sensitive Zone cannot be decided solely with a ruler.

A uniform 10-kilometre zone may be excessive in a densely inhabited direction where there is little ecological connectivity. In another direction, even 10 kilometres may be inadequate if it contains a river catchment, breeding ground or wildlife corridor connecting two forests.

The scientifically defensible approach is therefore neither “10 kilometres everywhere” nor “one kilometre everywhere.” The boundary should follow ecological evidence.

Satellite mapping, animal-movement data, water systems, forest connectivity, terrain and the cumulative impact of existing projects must determine where restrictions are required. These studies—and not merely their conclusions—should be placed in the public domain.

Eco-Sensitive Does Not Mean No Human Activity

Much of the opposition to Eco-Sensitive Zones arises from the belief that villages will be displaced or that all construction, farming and livelihood activity will be prohibited. That is generally not what an ESZ notification means.

Eco-Sensitive Zones are intended to regulate activities according to their environmental impact. Ordinary agriculture and existing local activities are treated differently from commercial mining, polluting industries, large construction projects or unregulated tourism.

This distinction must be communicated clearly.

When residents are not told what will be permitted, regulated or prohibited, rumours fill the information gap. Forest protection then begins to appear like a punishment imposed on villagers while influential businesses obtain approvals through exceptions.

That perception can destroy local cooperation—the very cooperation on which conservation ultimately depends.

Local Communities Cannot Pay the Entire Price

People living around the forests of Mandla, Balaghat, Umaria, Seoni, Sheopur, Kabirdham, Gariaband, Surguja and Bastar cannot be expected to bear all the costs of conservation for the benefit of distant cities and tourists.

A farmer who loses a crop to wild animals cannot wait indefinitely for compensation. A village situated near a tiger reserve still needs reliable healthcare, education, drinking water and communication facilities. Young residents need employment that extends beyond a few seasonal tourism jobs.

Governments must therefore stop presenting development and conservation as two mutually exclusive choices.

Forest-compatible roads, carefully located public facilities, community homestays, local guiding services, handicrafts, sustainable agriculture and properly regulated nature tourism can improve livelihoods without turning the edge of every reserve into a commercial strip.

Compensation for crop loss, livestock deaths and human casualties must also be prompt and credible. Conservation cannot survive if the people living closest to wildlife experience it only as economic loss and bureaucratic delay.

Tourism Must Face Scrutiny Too

Mining and heavy industry attract immediate attention, but badly planned tourism can also harm a forest landscape.

Around popular destinations such as Bandhavgarh, Kanha and Pench, the relevant question is not merely how many new resorts can be approved. Authorities must examine the total pressure created by accommodation, borewells, waste, sewage, traffic, bright lighting and demand for land.

Every project may appear manageable when considered separately. Together, however, dozens of projects can exceed the carrying capacity of a small landscape.

Tourism earns its legitimacy only when part of its value returns to conservation and nearby communities. Otherwise, the forest bears the ecological cost while profits move elsewhere.

MP and Chhattisgarh Need a Publicly Verifiable Process

Before changing an Eco-Sensitive Zone around any protected area, the government should publicly answer five questions:

1. Which villages, habitats, water sources and wildlife corridors fall inside the proposed boundary?
2. What scientific study supports the distance chosen in each direction?
3. Which activities will become possible after the boundary changes?
4. How were local residents, independent scientists and conservation organisations consulted?
5. How will the cumulative impact of roads, mines, resorts and industries be monitored?

These answers should be available before approval, not produced after a controversy begins.

The Centre has already issued hundreds of final ESZ notifications covering protected areas across India. Madhya Pradesh also has notified zones and planning processes around several of its reserves. The challenge now is not merely to create more notifications, but to make their implementation scientific, transparent and fair.

The Choice Is Not Between Rhinos and Residents

The Kaziranga dispute should not be reduced to a choice between protecting rhinos and allowing people to live. Nor should every demand for development be treated as an excuse to weaken conservation.

Residents have legitimate aspirations. Wildlife has ecological requirements that cannot be negotiated after its habitat disappears. Good governance must accommodate both—but it must do so through evidence rather than political convenience.

For Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the lesson is clear: an Eco-Sensitive Zone should not be an arbitrary circle, but neither should it become a line adjusted whenever valuable land is wanted for development.

Forests cannot be protected only from the inside. What happens immediately outside their boundaries eventually determines what survives within them.