A plan to redraw the boundaries of Rajasthan’s Sariska Tiger Reserve is inching closer to approval, paving the way for the reactivation of over 50 mining operations that the the Supreme Court had previously ordered shut.
The proposal involves removing 48.39 sq km of “human-impacted” hilly terrain from the reserve’s “critical tiger habitat” (CTH) and compensating this with 90.91 sq km of “quality tiger habitat” from the surrounding buffer zone.
"The proposal to rationalise the boundary of CTH of Sariska Tiger Reserve was moved in the Wildlife Board Meeting on Monday and was passed," Rajasthan's head of the forest force (HoFF) Arijit Banerjee told PTI.
It is now under consideration by the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL).
If cleared, the plan would permanently reclassify the excluded land, mostly in the Tehla tehsil, as part of the buffer zone, where restrictions on commercial activity are looser than in the core areas of a sanctuary.
Map: researchgate.net
Officials call the boundary move a rational solution to balance conservation goals and economic interests. Wildlife experts and legal voices have raised red flags.
A May 2024 Supreme Court directive had led to the closure of 57 mines producing marble, dolomite, limestone and masonic stone located within a kilometre of the critical tiger habitat boundary.
If the boundary is redrawn as planned, over 50 mines would be repositioned outside the no-mining zone. These include sites in villages like Khoh, Palpur, Tilwad, Gordhanpura, Mallana, Doondpuri, Jaisinghpura and Kalwar.
‘Degraded’ but crucial: Experts caution
“Even human-impacted hilly terrain in dry deciduous ecosystems, such as the areas identified in Sariska, can play a crucial role as seasonal refuges or movement corridors for species like tigers, leopards, and striped hyenas,” Dr Dibyadeep Chatterjee, a consultant at Chester Zoo, UK, and former researcher at the Wildlife Institute of India who has worked extensively in Sariska, told The Telegraph Online.
“Declaring such areas ‘degraded’ without rigorous ecological assessment, such as camera trap surveys, prey density studies and habitat mapping, is misleading,” he said.
Two Radio or tracking collar bengal tigers or a mating pair in beautiful green trees and background at Sariska National Park or Tiger Reserve(Shutterstock)
The long-term implications could be severe, Chatterjee warned.
“Sariska’s long-term recovery hinges not only on tiger numbers but also on access to undisturbed space for dispersal, territorial establishment and gene flow. Excluding terrain that supports movement within a fragmented landscape would undermine the long-term effort of achieving a viable wildlife population, like that of tigers, by causing bottlenecks due to increasing intraspecific competition.”
Public perception is important, he stressed.
“Realigning boundaries to improve local relations is a valid goal, but must be backed by transparent consultation and sound ecological reasoning. If such changes are seen as enabling mining or development interests, rather than genuine conflict resolution, it can erode both conservation outcomes and public trust. And in a landscape like Sariska, where ecological recovery and community engagement have both been hard-earned, that's definitely a risky trade-off.”
Legal loopholes, conservation questions
Debadityo Sinha, lead, climate and ecosystems, at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, pointed to provisions under Section 29 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
The section says that without a permit “no person shall destroy, exploit or remove any wild life including forest produce from a sanctuary or destroy or damage or divert the habitat of any wild animal by any act whatsoever or divert, stop or enhance the flow of water into or outside the sanctuary.”
Such permits, he said, can only be granted in consultation with the NBWL, and only if deemed necessary for the improvement and better management of wildlife.
ST-9, Sariska Tiger Reserve, Alwar, Rajasthan, India (Shutterstock)
“What is the point of a sanctuary if you legalise the disturbance instead of removing it?” Sinha said.
He warned of ecological impacts.
“Mining activities will have several cumulative impacts, including increased human presence, transportation pressures, mine spoil generation, destruction of aquifers, overburden dumping to name a few. Such activities can only be permitted with the approval of both the State and Central authorities. However, they are not in the interest of wildlife at all.,” he added.
The Supreme Court earlier this year took up suo motu a case concerning unregulated entry and vehicular movement inside Sariska. The reconstituted Central Empowered Committee (CEC), in a 79-page report, touched only briefly on mining, flagging illegal operations due to “poor demarcation.”
Rajasthan accepted the CEC’s recommendations in September 2024. The state had originally declared 881 sq km as the critical tiger habitat in 2007-08, but delays in notification were triggered by long-standing disputes over legal ownership of some land parcels, according to a report by The Indian Express.
A view of the Sariska Tiger Reserve (Shutterstock)
Should the NBWL give its nod, the process will also be subject to Supreme Court scrutiny before the final go-ahead is granted.
But with more than just legal compliance at stake, conservationists stress that this moment may be critical for Sariska.
“Sariska’s CTH realignment must be examined through a rigorous, science-based lens. India’s conservation success depends on maintaining ecological integrity while fostering public trust. Diluting either can put long-term tiger recovery at risk,” Chatterjee said.
The revised map was presented to the NBWL standing committee in Dehradun on Thursday and is expected to play a role in the state’s compliance with the Supreme Court deadline to rationalise the critical tiger habitat boundary by December 2025.