India-South Africa Cheetah Pact 2023

India-South Africa Cheetah Pact 2023: The plan is to translocate 12 cheetahs every year for the next eight to 10 years to establish a healthy and genetically diverse cheetah population in India.

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India-South Africa Cheetah Pact 2023: In This article, we are using the headline – ”India-South Africa Cheetah Pact 2023” as India and South Africa (SA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to translocate more than 100 cheetahs to India over the next decade.
Relevance Of India-South Africa Cheetah Pact 2023: GS Paper 3: Environment- Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation.

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India-South Africa Cheetah Pact 2023 Context

In News

On January 26, 2023, the South African Government confirmed in a press release that India and South Africa (SA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to translocate more than 100 cheetahs to India over the next decade.

Background

In September 2022 eight cheetahs arrived in India from Namibia under an ambitious project to reintroduce the big cats starting from Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park.

PM Modi Released Cheetahs in Kuno National Park

Key Highlights Of India-South Africa Cheetah Pact 2023

An MOU Signed: India and South Africa (SA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to translocate more than 100 cheetahs to India over the next decade.

What Is The MOU On Cheetahs? The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Reintroduction of Cheetah to India facilitates cooperation between the parties to establish a viable and secure cheetah population in India. It also promotes conservation and ensures that expertise is shared and exchanged and capacity is built, to promote cheetah conservation

12 Cheetahs Every Year: The MoU between India And South Africa on translocating of Cheetahs stating that 12 big cats may arrive in India sometime in February 2023. Also, the plan is to translocate 12 cheetahs every year for the next eight to 10 years to establish a healthy and genetically diverse cheetah population in India.

Review Mechanism In Every 5 Years: The terms of the MoU on Cooperation in the Re-introduction of Cheetah to India will be reviewed every five years.

19th Meeting of NTCA: 50 Cheetah to be introduced in next 5 years

Significance of Collaborating With South Africa on Cheetahs

As part of the India-South Africa Cheetah Pact 2023, the two countries(India & SA) will collaborate and exchange best practices in large carnivore conservation through the transfer of technology, training of professionals in management, policy, and science, and establish a bilateral custodianship arrangement for cheetah translocated between the two countries.
Restoring cheetah populations is considered to be a priority for India. It will have vital and far-reaching conservation consequences, which would aim to achieve a number of ecological objectives — including re-establishing the functional role of cheetahs within their historical range in India and improving the livelihood options and economies of the local communities.

The Extinction Journey of Cheetah in India

Hunting:

The cheetah, which was relatively easy to tame and less dangerous than tigers, was frequently used by Indian nobility for sport-hunting.
The earliest available record for cheetahs being used for hunts in India, comes from the 12th century Sanskrit text Manasollasa, which was produced by the Kalyani Chalukya ruler, Someshvara III (reigned from 1127-1138 CE).
Emperor Akbar, who reigned from 1556-1605, was particularly fond of the activity and is recorded to have collected 9,000 cheetahs in total.
Emperor Jahangir (ruled from 1605-1627) took after his father and is said to have caught more than 400 antelopes by cheetah coursing in the pargana of Palam.
The capture of wild cheetahs for hunting and the difficulty to breed them in captivity was leading to a decline in the cheetah population, even before the entry of the British.

Near extinction under the British Raj: they preferred to hunt big game, such as tigers, bison and elephants.

Under the British Raj, forests were extensively cleared, so as to develop settlements and to set up indigo, tea and coffee plantations.
This further resulted in the loss of habitat for big cats, contributing to their decline.
British officials considered the animal as “vermin” and also distributed monetary rewards for the killing of cheetahs from at least 1871 onwards.
The rewards for bounty hunting likely caused the decline of cheetahs, as even the removal of a small number would have negatively affected the ability of wild cheetahs to reproduce even at the lowest level required for survival.
As a result, wild cheetahs became very rare in India by the 20th century.

Extinction of Cheetah from India:

In 1952, the Indian government officially declared the Cheetah extinct in the country.
Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of Korea, Madhya Pradesh, is widely believed to have killed the last three recorded cheetahs in India in 1947.

Cheetahs in India: Tracing the Extinction of Cheetah in India and Re-introduction policy

FAQs

How Many Cheetahs Will Come To India Every Year From SA?

The MoU between India And South Africa on translocating of Cheetahs stating that 12 big cats may arrive in India sometime in February 2023. Also, the plan is to translocate 12 cheetahs every year for the next eight to 10 years to establish a healthy and genetically diverse cheetah population in India.