IWN Daily Digest — Tuesday, 27 October 2026
Maharashtra has widened the legal protection around its forests in a single board meeting, upgrading two areas to wildlife sanctuaries and approving 14 more as conservation reserves across seven districts.
As reported by ThePrint (carrying a PTI report):
“The Maharashtra State Board for Wildlife on Monday approved proposals to declare two forest areas as wildlife sanctuaries and 14 areas across seven districts as conservation reserves, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Monday. The decisions were taken at the 26th meeting of the board, which was chaired by the CM.”
The sanctuary proposals cover the Kolamarka Conservation Reserve in Gadchiroli district, which is known for its wild buffaloes, and a newly expanded Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary. The Tansa expansion will take in 588.767 hectares of revenue and private land from six villages (Ogda, Khodde, Tirmal, Pachghar, Phansad and Amle), so that the sanctuary is free of human habitation.
The 14 conservation reserves are spread across Pune, Raigad, Nashik, Nandurbar, Thane, Palghar and Chandrapur districts. They include Velhe-Mulshi, Lonavala, Jawhar in Palghar and Ekara in Chandrapur.
The board also approved declaring 100.139 sq km of the Koka Wildlife Sanctuary and 255.79 sq km of the Jayakwadi Bird Sanctuary as critical wildlife habitats.
Wild buffalo are the animal Kolamarka is known for. Kishor Rithe of the Satpuda Foundation was quoted by Deccan Herald in an earlier report on the area as saying that the total world population of wild buffalo is less than 4,000.
Projects Cleared
The chief minister also asked that routine works inside sanctuaries, such as dam repairs, rehabilitation and desilting, be included in sanctuary management plans, which are to be revised within three months under new standard operating procedures. Instead of seeking separate approvals for every such work, a system should be put in place to ensure prior intimation to the wildlife officials concerned, he said.
Projects approved in protected areas, eco-sensitive zones and tiger corridors included irrigation, healthcare, water supply, bridges, roads, underground optical fibre cables and power lines.
The board also discussed notifying the core, buffer and eco-sensitive areas of the state’s six tiger reserves as silence zones, declaring human-wildlife conflict a natural disaster, and framing a policy to rehabilitate villages willing to relocate from tiger reserve buffer zones.
Sources: ThePrint (PTI) · Deccan Herald
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