Bhupender Yadav Releases Gujarat GIB Action Plan and Reviews Project Cheetah at Bhuj

🗞️ Why in News On 13 September 2026, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav chaired a review at Bhuj in Kachchh (Gujarat) and released the Gujarat Action Plan for the Conservation of the Great Indian Bustard, prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, in association with the Gujarat Forest Department. The Plan targets a minimum viable population of 30-plus birds in Kachchh and aims to secure 200 to 500 square kilometres of safe, contiguous habitat, with the immediate focus on the approximately 200 square kilometre Lala-Rawa landscape. In the same review, the Project Cheetah population across Kuno National Park (Madhya Pradesh) and Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary (Madhya Pradesh) was reported at 52.

Great Indian Bustard: Where the Species Stands

The Great Indian Bustard (GIB), Ardeotis nigriceps, is one of the world’s heaviest flying birds and among the most critically endangered in India. It is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, included under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and listed under Appendix I of both the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

The species inhabits arid and semi-arid grasslands. Historically its range extended across much of central and western India; contemporary populations are confined largely to Rajasthan (Desert National Park near Jaisalmer) and to the Kachchh grasslands of Gujarat, with sporadic records in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The remaining wild population is estimated at fewer than 150 individuals, of which the Rajasthan population is the larger. Overhead power lines in bustard-priority habitats have been a documented mortality cause, addressed by the Supreme Court in M.K. Ranjitsinh Jhala versus Union of India (a matter still under implementation).

As background to the Plan, Gujarat’s wild GIB population is only three birds, all female. A chick hatched on 26 March 2026 from a swapped egg.

What the Gujarat Action Plan Contains

The Plan is a landscape-scale document rather than a species-in-isolation prescription. Its principal elements are:

• A minimum viable population target of 30-plus birds for Kachchh, calibrated to genetic diversity and population resilience.
• Habitat security for 200 to 500 square kilometres of safe, contiguous habitat, with the immediate focus on the approximately 200 square kilometre Lala-Rawa landscape, involving removal of invasive Prosopis juliflora, restoration of native grass cover, and rewilding of the habitat matrix.
• Grazing management in the grassland habitat.
• Predator management in the immediate breeding zones.
• Egg-swapping using eggs from the Rajasthan conservation breeding programme, and a GIB soft release centre near Naliya.
• Mitigation of infrastructure-related threats such as power lines.

Project Cheetah: The 52 Figure

Project Cheetah was launched in September 2022 with the translocation of the first cheetahs from Namibia to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, followed by cheetahs from South Africa and, since 2026, from Botswana, with nine cheetahs arriving at Kuno on 28 February 2026. It is the world’s first intercontinental large-carnivore translocation of a species declared extinct in a country. The cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952, and the project’s declared objective is to re-establish a free-ranging metapopulation at multiple sites.

The 13 September 2026 review at Bhuj put the current cheetah population at 52 individuals across two sites: Kuno National Park and Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, both in Madhya Pradesh. Gandhi Sagar was activated as the second release site to give the metapopulation a wider genetic and territorial base. The population count includes both imported adults and India-born cubs.

Why the Two Are Reviewed Together

The GIB Plan and the Project Cheetah review sit in the same conservation frame because both concern open grassland and dry-savanna ecosystems, which have been the most neglected biome in Indian conservation. The forest-centric design of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and the Protected Area network long treated grasslands as wastelands, in the colonial land-revenue sense; the resulting habitat loss is the proximate cause of the GIB’s collapse and of the loss of the original Indian cheetah. Landscape-scale action in Kachchh and Kuno-Gandhi Sagar signals that grasslands are no longer administrative wastelands but priority habitat.

UPSC Relevance

GS Paper 3. Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation. Species-in-news; protected area management; landscape-level conservation.

A question worth preparing. “The story of the Great Indian Bustard illustrates why species conservation must move from Protected Area boundaries to landscape-scale planning. Examine, with reference to the recent Gujarat Action Plan for the species. (250 words)”

The Mains framing. The GIB Plan is a documented shift from the PA-centric to the landscape-scale approach. It addresses grazing management and invasive Prosopis juliflora as structural problems, and takes on the mitigation of infrastructure-related threats such as power lines. Project Cheetah supplies the parallel test: whether India can rebuild a grassland carnivore metapopulation at multiple sites. Both are, at their core, tests of whether India can undo the colonial classification of grasslands as wastelands in the ecology of its own conservation practice.

📌 Facts Corner, Knowledgepedia

Prelims-grade facts:

• The Gujarat Action Plan for the Conservation of the Great Indian Bustard was released by Union Minister Bhupender Yadav at Bhuj on 13 September 2026, prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India with the Gujarat Forest Department.
• The Plan targets a minimum viable population of 30-plus GIBs in Kachchh.
• The Plan aims to secure 200 to 500 sq km of safe, contiguous habitat; the immediate focus is the approximately 200 sq km Lala-Rawa landscape.
• Gujarat’s wild GIB population is only three birds, all female; a chick hatched on 26 March 2026 from a swapped egg.
• The Plan provides for egg-swapping from the Rajasthan conservation breeding programme and a GIB soft release centre near Naliya.
• GIB (Ardeotis nigriceps) is Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, in Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and in Appendix I of both CMS and CITES.
• GIB strongholds are Desert National Park, Jaisalmer (Rajasthan) and Kachchh (Gujarat).
• Project Cheetah began at Kuno on 17 September 2022; cheetahs have come from Namibia, South Africa and, since February 2026, Botswana.
• The 13 September 2026 review put the Project Cheetah population at 52 across Kuno and Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary (both in Madhya Pradesh).
• The cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952.

Prelims-grade traps:

• GIB is not in the same threat category as the tiger; it is Critically Endangered, one step below Extinct in the Wild.
• The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) is based in Dehradun; it is not the National Board for Wildlife.
• Prosopis juliflora is an invasive shrub introduced in the colonial period, not a native.
• Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary is in Madhya Pradesh (Mandsaur/Neemuch); it should not be confused with the eponymous dam.

Mains, arguments and keywords:

• Landscape-scale versus PA-centric conservation.
• Renewable-energy coexistence and the M.K. Ranjitsinh Jhala proceedings on overhead lines.
• Grasslands as an under-recognised biome in the colonial-legacy conservation framework.
• Keywords: GIB, Ardeotis nigriceps, Kachchh, Desert National Park, Project Cheetah, Kuno, Gandhi Sagar, Prosopis, WII.

Interview, be ready for:

• “Why is the Great Indian Bustard called Critically Endangered rather than Endangered?” Because the remaining wild population is under 250 mature individuals with a declining trend, meeting the IUCN criteria for that category.
• “What is a minimum viable population?” The smallest population size at which the species has a high probability of persisting in the wild for a specified time horizon, accounting for genetic and demographic risk.
• “Why is Prosopis juliflora a problem for the GIB?” Because it converts open grassland into thorn scrub, which the GIB cannot use for lekking, nesting or foraging.

Source: Bhupender Yadav Releases Gujarat GIB Action Plan and Reviews Project Cheetah at Bhuj — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Current Affairs