The Ministry of Environment & Forests is now in the process of developing a "Tiger habitat and population evaluation System" for the Indian subcontinent in the GIS domain. The objectives take care of the tiger sociology as well as the prevailing ground situation. The habitat as well as status of tigers in the country is being assessed for developing site specific census and monitoring protocols. The information collected and analyzed in the GIS domain would be disseminated to Field Managers apart from conducting regional workshops and training to apprise the field staff in census, habitat monitoring, evaluation and field monitoring techniques. This exercise, using the state of the art technology, would involve mapping, satellite and field data collection, GIS modeling, and validation. The “tiger atlas”so generated would also serve as a benchmark and the evaluation system would be a monitoring tool to ensure that we keep the pulse of tiger population and its habitat for future generations to come. This state of the art technology application to conservation should remove any doubt that may exist regarding our commitment to save tiger and its habitat.

As a part of the above ongoing process the Satpura Landscape of MP has been selected for pilot study and “extensive data collection” in the landscape was done from 24 th –28 th February, 2004, covering as many as 9 conservancies / protected areas involving more than 5000 beats. The field friendly manual evolved in consultation with field staff may be seen for further details. The second phase of the pilot study is under way.

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