Gir Forest National Park
Gir National Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Location Map
Location	Junagadh District and Amreli District Gujarat, India
Nearest city	Junagadh Amreli
Coordinates	21°08′08″N 70°47′48″E / 21.13556°N 70.79667°E / 21.13556; 70.79667Coordinates: 21°08′08″N 70°47′48″E / 21.13556°N 70.79667°E / 21.13556; 70.79667
Area	1,412 km²
Established	1965
Visitors	60,000 (in 2004)
Governing body	Forest Department of Gujarat

The Gir Forest National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary (also known as Sasan-Gir, ગીર રાષ્ટ્રીય ઉદ્યાન and गिर वन) is a forest and wildlife sanctuary in Gujarat, India. Established in 1965, with a total area of 1412 km² (about 258 km² for the fully protected area (the national park) and 1153 km² for the Sanctuary), the park is located 65 km to the south-east of Junagadh and 60 km to south west of Amreli.

It is the sole home of the pure Asiatic Lions (Panthera leo persica) and is considered to be one of the most important protected areas in Asia due to its supported species. The ecosystem of Gir, with its diverse flora and fauna, is protected as a result of the efforts of the government forest department, wildlife activists and NGOs. The forest area of Gir and its lions were declared as "protected" in the early 1900s by the then Nawab of the princely state of Junagadh. This initiative assisted in the conservation of the lions whose population had plummeted to only 15 through slaughter for trophy hunting.

The April 2010 census recorded the lion-count in Gir at 411, an increase of 52 compared to 2005. The lion breeding programme covering the park and surrounding area has bred about 180 lions in captivity since its inception.

Geography[link]

Gir National Park and Gir Wildlife Sanctuary

Water reserves[link]

The seven major perennial rivers of the Gir region are Hiran, Shetrunji, Datardi, Shingoda, Machhundri, Godavari and Raval. The four reservoirs of the area are at four dams, one each on Hiran, Machhundri, Raval and Shingoda rivers, including the biggest reservoir in the area, the Kamleshwar Dam, dubbed 'the lifeline of Gir'.

During peak summer, surface water for wild animals is available at about 300 water points. When drought hits the area following a poor rainfall, surface water is not available at a majority of these points, and water scarcity becomes a serious problem (mainly in the eastern part of the sanctuary). Ensuring the availability of water during peak summer is one of the major tasks of the Forest Department staff.

Flora[link]

More than 400 plant species were recorded in the survey of Gir forest by Samtapau & Raizada in 1955. The Botany department of M.S. University of Baroda has revised the count to 507 during their survey. According to the 1964 forest type classification by Champion & Sheth, the Gir forest falls under "5A/C-1a—very dry teak forest" classification. Teak occurs mixed with dry deciduous species. The degradation stages (DS) sub-types are thus derived as: 1) 5/DS1-Dry deciduous scrub forest and 2) 5/DS1-Dry savannah forests (Locally known as "vidis"). It is the largest dry deciduous forest in western India.

Teak bearing areas are mainly in the eastern portion of the forest, which constitutes nearly half of the total area.

The forest is an important biological research area with considerable scientific, educational, aesthetic and recreational values. It provides nearly 5 million kilograms of green grass by annual harvesting, which is valued approximately at Rs. 50 crores (Rs. 500,000,000) (US$ 10 million). The forest provides nearly 15,000 metric tons worth of fuel wood annually.

Wildlife[link]

The count of 2,375 distinct fauna species of Gir includes about 38 species of mammals, around 300 species of birds, 37 species of reptiles and more than 2,000 species of insects.

The carnivores group mainly comprises Asiatic lions, Indian Leopards, Sloth bears, Indian Cobras, Jungle cats, Striped Hyenas, Golden Jackals, Indian Mongoose, Indian Palm Civets, and Ratels. Desert cats and Rusty-spotted cats exist but are rarely seen.

The main herbivores of Gir are Chital, Nilgai (or Bluebull), Sambar, Four-horned Antelope, Chinkara and Wild boar. Blackbucks from the surrounding area are sometimes seen in the sanctuary.

Among the smaller mammals, Porcupine and Hare are common but the Pangolin is rare. The reptiles are represented by the mugger Marsh crocodile (highest population among all protected areas in India), the Indian Star Tortoise and the Monitor Lizard in the water areas of the sanctuary. Snakes are found in the bushes and forest. Pythons are sighted at times along the stream banks. Gir has been used by the Gujarat State Forest Department which adopted the Indian Crocodile Conservation Project in 1977 and released close to 1000 Marsh crocodile reared in Gir rearing centre into the Kamaleshwar lake and other reservoirs and small water bodies in and around Gir.

The plentiful avifauna population has more than 300 species of birds, most of which are resident. The scavenger group of birds has 6 recorded species of Vultures. Some of the typical species of Gir include Crested Serpent Eagle, endangered Bonelli's Eagle, Crested Hawk-eagle, Brown Fish Owl, Indian Eagle-Owl, Rock Bush-Quail, Pygmy Woodpecker, Black-headed Oriole, Crested Treeswift and Indian Pitta. The Indian Grey Hornbill was not found in the last census of 2001.

Asiatic Lion habitat, distribution and population[link]

Asiatic Lion at Gir

The Asiatic Lions habitat is dry scrub land and open deciduous forest. These lions were once found across northern Africa, south west Asia and northern Greece. Now there are only around 411 left in the wild and all of them are in or around the Gir Forest National Park.

Even though the Gir Forest is well protected, there are instances of Asiatic Lions being poached. They have also been poisoned for attacking livestock. Some of the other threats include floods, fires and the possibility of epidemics and natural calamities. Gir nonetheless remains the most promising long term preserve for them.

The lion breeding programme and lion-counting[link]

The Lion Breeding Programme creates and maintains breeding centres. It also carries out studies of the behaviour of the Asiatic lions and also practices artificial insemination. One such centre has been established in the Sakkarbaug Zoo at the district headquarters of Junagadh, which has successfully bred about 180 lions. 126 pure Asiatic lions have been given to zoos in India and abroad.

The census of lions takes place every five years. Previously indirect methods like using pugmarks of the lion were adopted for the count. However, during the census of April 2005 (which originally was scheduled for 2006, but was advanced following the reports and controversy over vanishing tigers in India), "Block-Direct-Total Count" method was employed with the help of around 1,000 forest officials, experts and volunteers. It means that only those lions were counted that were "spotted" visually. Use of "live bait" (a prey that is alive and used as a bait) for the exercise, though thought to be a traditional practice, was not used this time. The reason believed to be behind this is the Gujarat High Court ruling of 2000 against such a use of animals.

Gir Interpretation Zone, Devalia[link]

Gir National Park and Sanctuary does not have a designated area for tourists. However, to reduce the tourism hazard to the wildlife and to promote nature education, an Interpretation Zone has been created at Devalia within the sanctuary. Within its chained fences, it covers all habitat types and wildlife of Gir with its feeding-cum-living cages for the carnivores and a double-gate entry system.

See also[link]

• List of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries of Gujarat, India
• Girnar
• Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary is the site for re-introducing and establishing the world's second completely separate population of the wild free ranging Asiatic Lions in the neighboring state of Madhya Pradesh, India
• In-situ conservation
• Wildlife conservation
• Siddi

References[link]

• Gir National Park & Wildlife Sanctuary & [1]; Official website: Forests & Environment Department; State Government of Gujarat, India

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (July 2011)

• Gir - The last abode of the Asiatic Lion
• Gir - The last home of Asiatic Lion
• Sasan Gir National Park
• Gir Forest in Gujarat
• Deccan Herald: Gir registers highest ever lion count
• "Call of the lion" - May 11, 2003
• Lions are leaving their lair in Gir
• Finding more space for the Asiatic lion, The Hindu - Opinion
• Frontline: A kingdom too small
• Zoo Authority of India - Info on Asiatic Lion and its Genetics
• "Translocating Asiatic Lions, India" - from Re-introduction Specialist Group of IUCN's Species Survival Commission
• National Geographic: Asia's Last Lions
• Gir Forest National Park travel guide from Wikitravel
• Panthera leo (lion) from "Animal Diversity Web"
• "Translocating Asiatic Lions, India" - August 1999 from: Re-introduction Newsletter of the Re-introduction Specialist Group of IUCN's Species Survival Commission
• Asiatic lion Population and Habitat Viability Assessment.
• Asiatic Lion Information Center
• Asiatic Lion Protection Society (ALPS), Gujarat, India
• "Gir National Park & Wildlife Sanctuary", HOME TO "ASIATIC LIONS", Forest Department, Govt. of the State of Gujarat, INDIA
• Forests & Environment Department of the State Govt. of Gujarat, INDIA
• PRINCIPAL THREATS: Asiatic Lion (Panthera Leo Persica) - Specie page: CAT Specialist Group, IUCN - The World Conservation Union
• "Vanishing Herds Foundation (VHF), India" comes to the rescue of Asiatic Lion
• Samrakshan's The Kuno Initiative, Madhya Pradesh (MP) Regional Office, India.

v t e • Part of the series on National Parks of India • Andaman & Nicobar Islands Campbell Bay Galathea Mahatma Gandhi Mt. Harriet Island Middle Button Island North Button Island Rani Jhansi Saddle Peak South Button Island Andhra Pradesh Kasu Brahmananda Reddy Mahavir Harina Vanasthali Mrugavani Sri Venkateswara Arunachal Pradesh Mouling Namdapha Assam Dibru-Saikhowa Kaziranga Manas Nameri Orang Bihar Valmiki Kanwar Taal Bird Sanctuary Vikramshila Dolphin Sanctuary Chhattisgarh Indravati Kanger Ghati Goa Mollem Gujarat Blackbuck Gir Gulf of Kutch Vansda Haryana Kalesar Sultanpur Himachal Pradesh Great Himalayan Pin Valley Jammu & Kashmir Dachigam Hemis Kishtwar Salim Ali Jharkhand Betla Karnataka Anshi Bandipur Bannerghatta Kudremukh National Park Nagarhole Kerala Anamudi Shola Eravikulam Mathikettan Shola Pampadam Shola Periyar Silent Valley Madhya Pradesh Bandhavgarh Fossil Kanha Madhav Panna Pench Sanjay Satpura Van Vihar Maharashtra Chandoli Gilbert Hill Gugamal Karnala Navegaon Pench Sanjay Gandhi Tadoba Manipur Keibul Lamjao Sirohi Meghalaya Balphakram Nokrek Mizoram Murlen Phawngpui Nagaland Intanki Orissa Bhitarkanika Simlipal Rajasthan Darrah Desert Keoladeo Ranthambhore Sariska Sikkim Khangchendzonga Tamil Nadu Guindy Gulf of Mannar Indira Gandhi Palani Hills Mudumalai Mukurthi Uttar Pradesh Nawabganj Dudhwa Uttarakhand Corbett Gangotri Govind Nanda Devi Rajaji Valley of Flowers West Bengal Buxa Gorumara Neora Valley Singalila Sundarbans National Parks Protected areas of India Ministry of Environment and Forests (India)

The front of Forest National

Forest National (French) or Vorst Nationaal (Dutch) is a multi-purpose arena in Brussels, Belgium. The arena can hold 13,000 people. It hosts indoor sporting events, as well as music concerts, by a wide variety of music artists.

External links[link]

• Venue information

Coordinates: 50°48′35″N 4°19′34″E / 50.80984°N 4.326242°E / 50.80984; 4.326242

This article about a Belgium sports venue is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

An elephant safari through the Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary in West Bengal, India

The Teide National Park in Tenerife (Spain).

A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently (for example, see Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in the United States^[1]), an international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined National Parks as its category II type of protected areas. While ideas for this type of national park had been suggested previously, the United States established the first such one, Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. The largest national park in the world meeting the IUCN definition is the Northeast Greenland National Park, which was established in 1974. According to the IUCN, there were 6,555 national parks worldwide in 2006 that meet its criteria.^[2]

Definitions[link]

Landsat 7 image of Kavir National Park, Iran.

In 1969 the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) declared a national park to be a relatively large area with particular defining characteristics.^[3] A national park was deemed to be a place

• with one or several ecosystems not materially altered by human exploitation and occupation, where plant and animal species, geomorphological sites and habitats are of special scientific, educative and recreative interest or which contain a natural landscape of great beauty.
• the highest competent authority of the country has taken steps to prevent or eliminate exploitation or occupation as soon as possible in the whole area and to effectively enforce the respect of ecological, geomorphological, or aesthetic features which have led to its establishment.
• visitors are allowed to enter, under special conditions, for inspirational, educative, cultural, and recreative purposes.

In 1971 these criteria were further expanded upon leading to more clear and defined benchmarks to evaluate a national park. These include:

• a minimum size of 1,000 hectares within zones in which protection of nature takes precedence
• statutory legal protection
• a budget and staff sufficient to provide sufficient effective protection
• prohibition of exploitation of natural resources (including the development of dams) qualified by such activities as sport, fishing, the need for management, facilities, etc.

While national parks are generally understood to be administered by national governments (hence the name), in Australia national parks are run by state governments and predate the Federation of Australia.

History[link]

Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

In 1835, the English poet William Wordsworth described the Lake District as a^[4]

sort of national property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy.

The painter George Catlin, in his travels through the American West, wrote during the 1830s that the Native Americans in the United States might be preserved^[5]

(by some great protecting policy of government) ...in a magnificent park ...A nation's Park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty!

The first effort by any government to set aside such protected lands was in the United States, on April 20, 1832, when President Andrew Jackson signed legislation that the 22nd United States Congress had enacted to set aside four sections of land around what is now Hot Springs, Arkansas to protect the natural, thermal springs and adjoining mountainsides for the future disposal of the US government.^[6][7] It was known as the Hot Springs Reservation. However no legal authority was established and federal control of the area was not clearly established until 1877.^[6]

The next effort by any government to set aside such protected lands was, again, in the United States, when President Abraham Lincoln signed an Act of Congress on June 30, 1864, ceding the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias (later becoming the Yosemite National Park) to the state of California:^[8]

.... the said State shall accept this grant upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation; shall be inalienable for all time; .... — 38th United States Congress, Session 1, 1864

Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, California, USA

In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first truly national park.^[9] When news of the natural wonders of the Yellowstone were first promulgated, the land was part of a federally governed territory. Unlike Yosemite, there was no state government that could assume stewardship of the land, so the federal government took on direct responsibility for the park, the official first national park of the United States. It took the combined effort and interest of conservationists, politicians and especially businesses—namely, the Northern Pacific Railroad, whose route through Montana would greatly benefit by the creation of this new tourist attraction—to ensure the passage of that landmark enabling legislation by the United States Congress to create Yellowstone National Park. Theodore Roosevelt, already an active campaigner and so influential as good stump speakers were highly necessary in the pre-telecommunications era, was highly influential in convincing fellow Republicans and big business to back the bill.

The United States in 1872. When Yellowstone was established, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho were territories, not states. For this reason, the federal government had to assume responsibility for the land, hence the creation of the national park.

American Pulitzer Prize-winning author Wallace Stegner, has written:^[10]

National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.

Even with the creation of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and nearly 37 other national parks and monuments, another 44 years passed before an agency was created in the United States to administer these units in a comprehensive way — the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). Businessman Stephen Mather and his journalist partner Robert Sterling Yard pushed hardest for the creation of the NPS, writing then-Secretary of the Interior Franklin Knight Lane about such a need and spearheading a large publicity campaign for their movement. Lane invited Mather to come to Washington, DC to work with him to draft and see passage of the National Park Service Organic Act, which the 64th United States Congress enacted and which President Woodrow Wilson signed into law on August 25, 1916. Of the 397 sites managed by the National Park Service of the United States, only 58 carry the designation of National Park.

Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA Yellowstone was the first national park in the world.

Following the idea established in Yellowstone there soon followed parks in other nations. In Australia, the Royal National Park was established just south of Sydney in 1879, becoming the world's second official national park. Rocky Mountain National Park became Canada's first national park in 1885. New Zealand established Tongariro National Park in 1887. In Europe the first national parks were a set of nine parks in Sweden in 1909; Europe has some 359 national parks as of 2010.^{[citation needed]} Africa's first national park was established in 1925 when Albert I of Belgium designated an area of what is now Democratic Republic of Congo centred around the Virunga Mountains as the Albert National Park (since renamed Virunga National Park). In 1973, Mount Kilimanjaro was classified as a National Park and was opened to public access in 1977.^[11] In 1926, the government of South Africa designated Kruger National Park as the nation's first national park. After World War II, national parks were founded all over the world. The Vanoise National Park in the Alps was the first French national park, created in 1963 after public mobilization against a touristic project.

See also[link]

	Environment portal
	Ecology portal
	Earth sciences portal
	Sustainable development portal

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: National parks

• Protected Planet – World Database of Protected Areas
• UNESCO — Man and the Biosphere Programme (Biosphere Reserves)
• World Heritage Sites
• A-Z of Areas of Biodiversity Importance: National Parks
• UN Protected Areas database
• EUROPARC Federation — Europe's protected areas
• European National Parks Centre (ENPC)
• National Park of China
• National Parks Worldwide
• Vietnam National Parks
• Pictures of European national parks