Maharashtra’s GR No. SAVVI-2025/PR.KR.11/VANE-11, issued on 7 May 2026, explicitly prohibits tree planting in grasslands and wetlands — the first time a government resolution has put this in writing at scale. The same order that launched a 300-crore plantation drive also protects the ecosystems most at risk from it.
blackbuck
In the Thar Desert of western Rajasthan, blackbuck graze at the edge of villages the way cattle do elsewhere. They do not run. They have learned, over five centuries, that they do not need to.
India has no single word for what happens when a community embroiders a peacock onto a shawl, paints a tiger onto a temple wall, or weaves a blackbuck into a carpet — and has been doing so for five centuries.
India’s land records classify open grasslands as “wasteland” because they carry no trees. That single word is why the Great Indian Bustard is disappearing, why the blackbuck needs reintroduction programmes, and why the cheetah has no secured wild habitat to return to.
Clocked at 80 km/h across open grassland, the blackbuck is India’s fastest land animal. It was once nearly extinct. Now it’s running again in Chhattisgarh — after 50 years of absence.