Central India is considered to be the heart of India’s wildlife. It is home to some of India’s largest forest tracts, rich wildlife as well as indigenous people who have been living in the forests since time immemorial. This landscape supports 30 per cent of the world’s tiger population and 17 percent of India’s tiger population with some of the largest contiguous forested tracks connected through wildlife corridors.

The forests and wildlife of this landscape are threatened by encroachment, poaching of tigers and prey species, human wildlife conflict, unregulated and illegal cattle grazing, unsustainable harvesting of Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFP), medicinal plants and other forest resources, forest fires, mining and industrial development