MP Forests, National Parks and Tiger Reserves: Notes

Madhya Pradesh carries the largest forest area of any Indian state, and that single fact explains why the state is called the Tiger State and why its parks appear in paper after paper. Teak and sal cover the Satpura and the Maikal ranges, the Narmada and its tributaries water them, and within these forests sit Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Panna, Pench, Satpura and Kuno, each known for one thing an examiner can ask about: the barasingha, the white tiger, diamonds and a tiger return, a shared boundary with Maharashtra, a biosphere reserve and the cheetah.

Forest types and forest produce

Three broad types occur. Tropical dry deciduous forest, in which teak is the main tree, covers the largest area and spreads over the Malwa plateau, the Nimar tract and the Satpura. Tropical moist deciduous forest, in which sal replaces teak, lies in the east, in Mandla, Balaghat, Dindori, Shahdol and Sidhi, where rainfall is higher. Thorn forest occupies the dry north-west around the Chambal. Madhya Pradesh is the leading producer of tendu leaf, the wrapper of the beedi, and of sal seed, and its teak and bamboo forests give the state its timber. The state tree is the banyan, the state animal the barasingha or hard ground swamp deer, the state bird the dudhraj, also called the shah bulbul or Asian paradise flycatcher, and the state fish the mahseer.

The national parks and what each is known for

Kanha, declared a national park in 1955, is the oldest of these and the park where the barasingha was saved from extinction, which is why the deer is both the state animal and the park mascot. Bandhavgarh, around the ancient Bandhavgarh fort in Umaria, is the country of the white tiger: the white tiger Mohan was captured in this region by the Maharaja of Rewa in 1951, and every white tiger in captivity descends from that stock. Panna lost its tigers and had them brought back from other reserves, and the Ken river and the diamond mines of Panna lie beside it. Pench straddles the border so that part of it lies in Maharashtra, and the Pench river divides it.

Tiger reserves, biosphere reserves and wetlands

Kanha was one of the nine reserves with which Project Tiger began in 1973. Pench, Panna, Bandhavgarh and Satpura followed through the 1990s, Sanjay Dubri later, and the Nauradehi tract of Sagar, renamed after Rani Durgavati, and Ratapani in Raisen were added in recent years, so that Madhya Pradesh carries more tiger reserves than any other state. Three biosphere reserves lie in or partly in the state: Pachmarhi, which takes in Satpura National Park with the Bori and Pachmarhi sanctuaries, Achanakmar Amarkantak, shared with Chhattisgarh, and Panna, all three of them in the UNESCO world network. Among wetlands, the Bhoj wetland of Bhopal was listed under the Ramsar Convention in 2002, and Sirpur lake and Yashwant Sagar near Indore and Sakhya Sagar at Shivpuri were listed in 2022.

Sanctuaries worth a line each

• Ratapani in Raisen holds the Bhimbetka rock shelters, a World Heritage Site, within its limits.
• Bori in Narmadapuram is counted among the oldest protected forests of the country and is part of the Pachmarhi Biosphere Reserve.
• The National Chambal Sanctuary of Morena shelters the gharial, the Indian skimmer and the Ganges river dolphin.
• Ghatigaon near Gwalior and Karera in Shivpuri were set aside for the Great Indian Bustard, the son chiriya.
• Kuno in Sheopur was prepared first for Asiatic lions from Gir and then used for the cheetah introduction of September 2022.
• Pachmarhi, the only hill station of the state, lies inside the Satpura landscape, with Dhoopgarh as its highest point.