:
The National Alliance for Climate and Ecological Justice (NACEJ), a forum of the National Alliance of People’s Movements comprising grass-roots movement activists, ecologists, climate scientists, environmental researchers and lawyers has sent a memorandum to the Union Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, and Haryana Chief Minister, calling for immediately abandoning the proposed Aravali Zoo Safari Park project.
The memorandum critiques the proposed project and suggests alternatives, while also stressing the need for effective conservation of the fragile Aravali ecosystem, upholding of community rights and the Forest Rights Act.
Haryana government, through its Tourism Department in May 2022, had proposed the creation of the “World’s Largest Curated Safari Park” across 10,000 acres of Aravali hill land in the Gurugram and Nuh districts. The project plan includes extensive infrastructure, such as animal enclosures, guest houses, research centres, hotels, restaurants, auditoriums, entertainment parks, man-made lakes, a safari club for conferences, and retail spaces. Responding to the criticism on the spearheading of the project by the tourism department and how it sidelined the consideration of ecology, hydrology and biodiversity of the Aravali eco-sensitive area, the State Forest Department later took over the project from the Tourism Department. In January 2025, the State government formed an eight-member committee to oversee the Aravalli Zoo Safari project.
Human-animal conflict
In a 14-page document, the NACEJ, emphasising its impact on the wildlife and the local community, said the project initiated by the Tourism Department would primarily cater to the tourists’ interests and “will result in substantial increase in waste generation, vehicular traffic, pollution, human interference that will disrupt the natural balance of the ecosystem of the Aravalis”. It also expressed apprehension that fragmenting contiguous Aravali forest for zoo safari might lead to more human-wildlife conflict, adding that a large animal safari in the open dry landscape of Aravalis was also “technically not feasible”.
In 2023, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change had introduced the Forest Conservation Amendment Act and Rules defining zoos and safaris as forestry activities, but it had been challenged in the Supreme Court and Haryana Government should wait for the verdict in the case before going ahead with the project as the legislation that enables it was itself in question, said the memorandum.
The alliance suggested that the government must initiate ecotourism activities with community and native wildlife at its centre.
Several retired Indian Forest Service officers from across the country had also sent a representation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February opposing the project saying that the “primary purpose of any intervention in an eco-sensitive zone should be ‘conservation and restoration’ and not destruction”.
Published – September 09, 2025 01:23 am IST
