The Jammu and Kashmir government has blacklisted one of India’s most prominent wildlife conservation organisations after it repeatedly submitted fabricated research, missed deadlines for three years, and left a protected Himalayan sanctuary without a conservation plan.
The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Chief Wildlife Warden, Chaturbhuja Behera, issued the order on April 29, 2026, formally banning the Noida-based Wildlife Trust of India from all future contracts with the J&K forest department.
In July 2022, the J&K forest department awarded the Wildlife Trust of India a Rs 10.7 lakh contract to prepare a biodiversity assessment and conservation plan for Tatakuti Wildlife Sanctuary and two nearby conservation reserves, Kherra and Kullian, in the Pir Panjal mountains. The work was to be completed within one year.
Nearly four years later, it remains unfinished. The sanctuary, spread across 66.27 square kilometres in the Poonch and Budgam districts, is habitat for the Astore markhor, a protected wild goat found in the Pir Panjal range. It still has no approved, science-based conservation plan.
A Cascade of Missed Deadlines
The forest department sent six formal reminders and granted multiple deadline extensions before terminating the contract.
The Wildlife Trust of India submitted its first draft in September 2024, more than a year past the original deadline. The Wildlife Warden of the Rajouri-Poonch Division rejected it immediately. “The draft was not up to the mark, lacked scientific orientation, and did not adhere to the terms and conditions of the Expression of Interest,” the warden wrote on September 3, 2024.
A revised plan submitted in November 2024 fared no better. On December 4, 2024, the warden wrote to Tanushree Srivastava, the Wildlife Trust of India’s project head, detailing specific failures. The organisation “had not carried out any study of its own and had merely collected information from scientific papers regarding species occurrence, occupancy, and density,” the letter stated.
In May 2025, the department issued a final warning. The Wildlife Trust of India was given until July 15, 2025, to complete the project and directed to submit an undertaking within two days confirming it would do so. No undertaking arrived.
The organisation eventually submitted another revised draft in November 2025. The Wildlife Warden of Rajouri-Poonch rejected it in January 2026, stating he was “not satisfied with the fieldwork or the authenticity of the data.”
What Government Found
A review meeting chaired by Behera on April 24, 2026, examined the full record. The findings were unambiguous.
The Wildlife Trust of India’s fieldwork was “negligible in terms of the period of work and the area covered,” the meeting minutes recorded. The data submitted was “secondary in nature”, meaning it was drawn from existing published research rather than original field surveys. “Critical parameters essential for scientific biodiversity assessment had been completely overlooked or inadequately addressed,” the warden wrote in August 2025.
The department had already paid Rs 5.26 lakh, nearly half the contract value, before terminating the agreement. The final order concluded that the draft was “bereft of actual data and not fit for acceptance.” It directed that the amount paid be recovered and that the Wildlife Trust of India be “blacklisted to avoid any such repetition in the future.”
Consequences & What Comes Next
The blacklisting bars the Wildlife Trust of India from bidding on or participating in any forest or wildlife department work in Jammu and Kashmir. The government has initiated recovery of the advance paid.
The Wildlife Trust of India, which has worked with the J&K government on Hangul deer conservation and operated in the wildlife sector since 1998, has not issued a public statement on the order.
The Wire, which first reported the story, said it had reached out to the organisation for comment and would update its report on receiving a response.
The order was copied to Srivastava, identified in the document as project head of the Mountain Ungulate Project at the Wildlife Trust of India.
For the Tatakuti Wildlife Sanctuary and the markhor that live there, the practical consequence is stark. The government contracted this work in 2022. It is now 2026. The sanctuary still has no conservation plan.
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