Annals Of The Satpura Uplands

Mapping Past and Present of the Satpura-Melghat Corridor

Betul and Hoshangabad Forest Divisions. Chances are, those reading this would not have come across these names, and the few who have would perhaps find it difficult to put a finger on its location. So, let me introduce you to these forests, the way they once were.

One of the tigers camera-trapped in the Satpura-Melghat corridor landscape during the systemic survey of the area in 2022-23. Photo: WCT/MPFD.

The year was 1859. Colonel G.F. Pearson, the first Conservator of Forests of Central Provinces (CP), had begun the inaugural comprehensive surveys of the forests of Central India. Soon, he was marching across the forests of Betul and Hoshangabad. A keen shikari, he described these forests as follows: “At that time, the jungles of Betul and Hoshangabad were literally swarming with tigers, and I soon got in touch with them while doing my work. I once came across four full-grown tigers lying in the shade of a rock by a pool on the Machna river, six or eight miles below Shahpur. I was liberally supplied with Commissariat elephants and besides had my own excellent shooting elephant, Fulty Banee, so that I never had any difficulty in following tigers.” Soon after, around 1866, F.C. Hicks, among the first batch of forest officers to serve Central India, was packed off to Betul. Writing after his retirement in 1910, he recounted: “I do not know what they may be like now, but in former days the country round about both the Tawa and Maron rivers held a great number of tigers. I personally shot here, at various times, over fifty tigers within a radius of about thirty miles from a point on the border of the districts of Hoshungabad and Betul.”

It was not long before British hunters from all over India, and beyond, began vying for an opportunity to shoot in these forests. “Central India is a fine ground… Generally, in the more westerly parts of the district are to be found tiger – more numerous at Doni and Betul than in Mandla”, read the 1880 edition of Rowland Ward’s ‘Synoptical Guide to the Hunting Grounds of the World’.

Nearly 80 years after Pearson, the first forest officer to have served CP came here, C.E. Hewetson – who would go on to be the very last British forest officer to serve in India – was posted to Betul. Of these forests, he wrote: “[In 1938], I was moved to the Betul Division. This started the happiest period of my professional life. Betul was in the heart of Satpura hills and very picturesque country with lovely valleys and beautiful forests. It had always been in the hands of forest officers devoted to their work, and good subordinates had always tried to get posted there… Betul still had a fair stocking of game and I organised several Christmas camps for friends from 1938 to 1940 until the war made it no longer possible.”

Satpura and Melghat are connected through a massive tiger corridor that stretches across Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, spanning over 7,300 sq. km. – an area almost twice the size of Goa. Of this, nearly 60 per cent is forested.

Today, a large part of the Mandla forests referred to in Rowland Ward’s hunting guide is better known as the Kanha Tiger Reserve. But what became of Betul, often described as the “pleasant Satpura-buttressed upland”, which, as per the world’s most reputed hunting field guide, outclassed even the Kanha landscape? The Late J.J. Dutta, Hewetson’s junior, and one of the last surviving forest officers of the erstwhile Central Provinces, who passed away in 2024 at the age of 98, provides some clues. In 1951, as a young greenhorn, he was posted to Betul. Narrating his experiences in an unpublished essay from 2014 titled ‘Life of a Junglee’, he recounts:

“After a year as an Attached officer, I was sent for ‘Range training’ to ‘Bhavargarh’ Range in Betul division, a teak and ‘mixed’ forest area, which was at that time also taken up for working plan revision… The plan was made. Teak was to be encouraged for better ‘revenue’ production and nonteak areas were proposed to be planted. This plan was followed by another plan – with the same emphasis. Today Betul forests are almost ‘pure’ teak. Mixed forests have virtually disappeared. The areas where sambhur, cheetal, bison, tiger and leopard roamed around have become wildlife deserts. Betul, where the bungalows never needed ceiling fans even, now needed to be air conditioned. Betul, a favourite Division for British IFS officers, now is a poor division due to these environmental changes that I have seen and experienced in my lifetime.”

GRAND RESERVES, CRUCIAL LINKS While Betul and Hoshangabad Forest Divisions are unheard of, two names that most would have come across are the Satpura (Madhya Pradesh), and Melghat (Maharashtra) Tiger Reserves, among the two most important tiger reserves of the Central Indian landscape. However, despite their large size – Satpura at 2,133.31 sq. km. and Melghat at 2,768.52 sq. km. – these continue to remain lesser-known compared to some of the other more popular Central Indian tiger reserves. Nevertheless, both these reserves are home to over 50 tigers each as per the 2022 All-India Tiger Estimation (AITE), and host a healthy population of other wildlife such as leopards, dholes, gaurs, sloth bears, and sambar.

Satpura and Melghat are connected through a massive tiger corridor that stretches across Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, spanning over 7,300 sq. km. – an area almost twice the size of Goa. Of this, nearly 60 per cent is forested and is almost entirely conterminous with the forests of British-era Hoshangabad and Betul Division, the two accounting for nearly 90 per cent of the entire corridor area, while the remaining falls under the territorial forests of Melghat abutting the tiger reserve. Over time, the old larger divisions have been broken down into smaller units. While the Satpura Tiger Reserve and Harda division were carved out of the old Hoshangabad division, the old Betul forests birthed North Betul, South Betul, and West Betul divisions, along with parts of Khandwa division.

This background, hopefully, now puts the past faunal richness of the old Betul landscape in perspective, and helps appreciate the continued critical importance of Betul-Harda-Hoshangabad (now known as Narmadapuram) landscape.

MAPPING A LOST WILDERNESS So, what are the forests of old Betul-Harda- Hoshangabad (Narmadapuram) like today? Do tigers still survive here? What about the other wildlife that once thrived here? Until about a decade ago, we simply did not know the specifics. While it was known that these forests were no longer the wildlife havens that they once were, the specifics of the decline and its extent were unknown since these forests had never been systematically surveyed for wildlife. Arguably, these were among the least studied forested landscapes of Central India. This status quo, however, finally began changing.

Despite the intense anthropogenic pressure, linear infrastructure and other disturbances throughout the Satpura-Melghat corridor, leopards were found to be fairly well distributed across this corridor’s landscape. Photo: WCT/MPFD.

The WCT team with Forest Department staff during one of the field survey exercises in the Satpura-Melghat corridor. Photo: WCT.

C.1941 photo by C.E. Hewetson showing tiger scratch marks on an arjan tree somewhere in the Betul forest division. With the top mark at 3.2 m. above the ground, these claw marks give a clear sense of the tiger’s power when visualised in its stance. Photo: C.E. Hewetson/Bombay Natural History Society.

Reports of tigers moving across Harda and Betul forests would occasionally pop up in local newspapers. As management of Satpura and Melghat was strengthened, the frequency of such reports increased. In 2017, a tiger was shot and left critically injured in Rathipur, before it was rescued by the Forest Department. Then, in 2021, a tiger was poached in Athner and the skin smuggled out. In both the cases, poachers were eventually arrested. The same year, another tiger came into conflict with villagers in Rehatgaon, once a favourite haunt for shikaris of yore, in the forests of Harda division, and was luckily rescued and later released into the Satpura Tiger Reserve. The same year, a tiger cub was mowed down by a train in the heart of the corridor in Betul near Shahpur, where nearly 150 years ago G.F. Pearson had hunted down what he described as “the finest tiger I ever shot… of enormous proportions”. In 2022, once again in the forests of Athner, a cub was found dead. In the same year, a radio-collared tigress travelled from the Satpura Tiger Reserve to finally reach the Melghat Tiger Reserve.

These events not only highlighted the fact that tigers were regularly using this corridor, but also lay bare the critical threats that tigers, and other wildlife, face in this region – poaching along with various linear infrastructures in the form of roads and railway lines that were operating without any mitigation measures. Concomitantly, the unfortunate deaths of cubs brought to light the fact that breeding tigers were to be found in this corridor, and also offered hope that this landscape, if protected and nurtured, could turn into a tiger source population itself.

Reports of tiger movements in Satpura and Melghat not only highlighted the fact that tigers were regularly using this corridor, but also lay bare the threats tigers, and other wildlife, face here – poaching along with various linear infrastructures.

However, while these events along with limited camera-trapping in some parts of the corridor during tiger estimation exercises gave some idea on tiger movement, there was a complete absence of systemic baseline information on the status and distribution of fauna across this enormous landscape. This gap was finally plugged in by the Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT), which began the first-ever systemic faunal survey of the entire Satpura-Melghat corridor in 2022 in Madhya Pradesh (i.e. all the forest divisions of the corridor, except the Melghat territorial forests that had already been surveyed earlier). By the following year, nearly 90 per cent of the corridor had been mapped and camera trapped, with the survey achieving 31,870 trap nights (one pair of camera traps deployed and active for one day-night = 1 trap night).

The results were remarkable. Almost all mammalian species – tigers, leopards, dholes, wolves, hyenas, foxes, jackals, jungle cats, sloth bears, gaurs, sambar, chital, barking deer, nilgai, chinkaras, blackbucks, four-horned antelopes, ratels, pangolins, civets, etc. – that dwell in this part of Central India were recorded by the cameras. But the survey did not just reveal these denizens of this corridor for the first time to the outside world, but it also unravelled some interesting patterns (see box).

Given that the bulk of the corridor forests are afflicted with high levels of anthropogenic pressure, and consequent degradation of forests in large patches, the trapping exercise found that animals had carved out niches for themselves within the larger landscape. There were many silent local extinctions too. For instance, the forests of Khandwa were once renowned for their large gaur and especially vied for by shikar companies in the pre-1972 era, but were believed to have lost all of them by the dawn of the 21st century. WCT camera traps, sadly, confirmed this hunch. No gaur was found in the Khandwa forests. Sambar had largely been reduced to small pockets in the northern half of the corridor while largely disappearing from the southern half. Wolves, on the other hand, largely only occurred in the reverse order. Tigers, of course, were very few, and only four unique individuals were identified by the traps, though signs existed of a wider distribution and probably a few more individuals. Leopards seemed to be holding on, albeit in low densities across every forest division, and the endangered dhole too had wider distribution than expected. Overall, however, the densities of both predators and major prey species were low.

Map showing hotspots of leopard presence in the Satpura-Melghat Corridor. Photo: WCT.

Map showing the division-wise break-up of the Satpura-Melghat Corridor. Photo: WCT.

Rangewise administrative map of the Satpura-Melghat corridor prepared by the Coalition for Wildlife Corridors, a collaborative network of people and organisations, working to advance connectivity conservation in India. WCT is a part of this network. Photo: Satpura-Melghat Corridor Profile. Coalition For Wildlife Corridors. 2023.

The reasons behind these unfortunate state of affairs in the Satpura-Melghat corridor are well-known to those who are familiar with this landscape and keep a tab on the local media. Gun-toting poachers, timber smugglers, roving packs of feral dogs, unregulated cattle grazing, high human movement, and fuelwood extraction are some of the major threats afflicting these forests. The long inter-state border along this corridor complicates enforcement efforts against poaching and smuggling. Moreover, there are various other structural bottlenecks too. There is the extremely busy Itarsi-Nagpur rail line that slices through. The National Highway 46 and a maze of other roads criss-cross the landscape. Some of these, such as the Betul-Harda and Betul-Khandwa roads, are being widened without any mitigation measures. To add to this, two dams have been proposed on the Morand and Ganjal rivers that form the lifeline of this corridor that, if realised, will submerge a large section of the corridor and cause irreparable damage to the corridor. Earlier in the year, the NTCA protested the proposed Morand-Ganjal Irrigation Project, which would not only displace more than 600 Adivasi families, but also cause felling of almost 5.75 lakh trees. “Any disruption to this ecological connectivity will likely have long-term detrimental impacts on the viability of tiger populations and the broader wildlife community within this landscape,” said the NTCA while recommending exploration of other alternative sites for such projects.

There was a complete absence of systemic baseline information on the status and distribution of fauna across this enormous landscape. This gap was finally plugged in by the Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT), which began the first-ever systemic faunal survey of the entire Satpura-Melghat corridor in 2022 in Madhya Pradesh.

THE WAY FORWARD So, what should the way forward be for these historic forests? On the ecological front, there is a need for further granular surveys across the region to identify the most promising habitats, figure out movement patterns of wildlife, identify bottlenecks, and conduct further biodiversity research. Few know that the endangered Forest Owlet – rediscovered in 1997 after being last sighted in 1884, the mascot of the Melghat Tiger Reserve – is also reported from the Satpura-Melghat corridor. There might be many other surprises in store if long-term wildlife monitoring measures are put in place. From the point of view of securing and conservation management of this landscape, there are multiple opportunities. A long-standing proposal for the creation of a 425 sq. km. wildlife sanctuary in the Kalibhit forests of Khandwa division still awaits approval. Since all the forests in this corridor are territorial divisions, there is a desperate need to re-orient them towards scientific wildlife management practices. Moreover, protection and enforcement measures need to be beefed up to rein in poaching and smuggling. While WCT did conduct preliminary field training sessions for the frontline staff of the Forest Department across this corridor, a much broader and deeper engagement is needed for capacity building. This could, among other things, include regular field exposure visits of the staff from these divisions to various tiger reserves of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra that have set the standard for wildlife management. Moreover, there is an urgent need to undertake mitigation measures across the various roads and railway lines cutting through this corridor. Finally, communities need to be on board and made partners in conservation to ensure a long-term sustainable future for wildlife. This includes initiating active stakeholder consultations to bring about a change in attitudes toward wildlife, community engagement and alternate livelihood options to reduce high dependency of the communities on forests, and ensuring prompt compensation for crop and livestock losses as the first steps.

It is perhaps worth adding here that a wide forested arm on the eastern flank of the Betul forests links this entire landscape with the Satpura-Pench corridor, another critically important landscape which holds great potential and awaits systemic wildlife surveys.

Map showing hotspots of gaur presence in the Satpura-Melghat Corridor.

In 1941, a young C.E. Hewetson sent in a remarkable photo from Betul to the editors of the ‘Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society’, accompanied with a little note titled “Where a tiger sharpened his claws”. The note read – “The tree was on the side of a jungle road, along which a particularly large tiger used to promenade. The tree is an Arjan (Terminalia arjuna). The fire-watcher is standing on a slightly lower level than the ground at the near edge of the tree; the top claw mark was 10’ 6″ from ground level. The deeply scored claw marks indicate the energy put into the process, and if one pictures the tiger standing against the tree in the position indicated by the marks, one gets a vivid idea of the might of the tiger.”

I often revisit this photo and marvel at it. Will someone, someday, recreate such a photo all over again in the forests of Betul? Will tigers promenade all through the forests of this immense landscape once more? Time will tell.

This article was originally published in the April 2025 issue of Sanctuary Asia.

About the Author: Raza Kazmi is a conservationist, wildlife historian, storyteller, and researcher. He is a Conservation Communicator at WCT and writes in both English and Hindi languages. His writings appear in national newspapers, online media houses, magazines and journals, and various edited anthologies. A recipient of the New India Foundation Fellowship for 2021, he is currently writing a book tentatively titled ‘To Whom Does the Forest Belong?: The Fate of Green in the Land of Red’.

Disclaimer: The author is associated with Wildlife Conservation Trust. The views and opinions expressed in the article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Wildlife Conservation Trust.

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