In the vast scrubland surrounding Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar refinery lies Vantara, a sprawling, 3,000-acre private wildlife facility that bills itself as the country’s largest and most ambitious sanctuary. Spearheaded by Anant Ambani, it has become a symbol of India’s changing approach to conservation—lavish, expansive, and cloaked in corporate benevolence. But behind the glossy brochures and PR blitz lies a swirling vortex of troubling questions.
A Noah’s Ark for the Billionaire Class?
Launched as a dual initiative through the Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust and the Greens Zoological, Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, Vantara has quickly grown to house over 4,700 animals, including endangered species from around the globe. Supporters hail it as a visionary act of philanthropy. Critics, however, aren’t so sure.
Central to the controversy is how quickly and extensively Vantara has sourced animals. The sheer volume—leopards, lions, cheetahs, aardvarks, and even Spix’s macaws—raises questions about how India’s strict wildlife import laws and international agreements like CITES were navigated. A letter from the Wildlife Animal Protection Forum of South Africa (WAPFSA) to the South African government asks why 56 cheetahs and dozens of other species were exported to India and whether the transactions violated international law.
WAPFSA isn’t alone. International conservation groups are alarmed by the potential misuse of rescue and rehabilitation designations to circumvent trade restrictions.
Conservation or Commodification?
At the heart of the debate is Vantara’s claim of being a rescue centre. But reports suggest that not all animals brought in were in distress. Healthy elephants, including some from logging camps in Assam, have been transported thousands of kilometres—far from their natural habitat and even from semi-wild patrol duties under state forest departments.
A senior Assam forest official summed it up bluntly when speaking to a media outlet: “Even if they have to be moved, they belong in the wild or with us—not inside a corporate zoo.” Vantara’s claim to offer lifelong sanctuary may be sincere, but the optics of transferring fit animals to a privately-owned facility raise red flags.
Wrong Place, Wrong Climate?
Gujarat’s climate is another concern. With soaring summer temperatures, the arid terrain is arguably unsuited to housing species from cooler regions. Moreover, the location itself—a green belt adjacent to Reliance’s 7,500-acre petrochemical complex—is problematic. Elephants housed inside the perimeter of a highly polluting industry is a contradiction in terms, especially when considered against guidelines from India’s Central Pollution Control Board.
The risk isn’t theoretical. Petrochemical zones pose ongoing dangers: air pollutants, noise, and the possibility of industrial accidents. Even if Vantara’s internal systems are top-notch, they can’t control what’s outside the fence.
Where There’s Smoke…
Despite repeated assertions from Greens—Vantara’s operational wing—that all acquisitions are legal and ethical, transparency remains elusive. Detailed lists of animal transfers, sourcing protocols, and third-party audits are conspicuously absent from the public domain. The organisation insists that all required permits are in place and that it will never function as a breeding farm, but with India’s recent relaxation of certain wildlife trading rules, sceptics are not reassured.
Climate Samurai’s report, “Vantara: The Illusion of Conservation,” argues that the project may be more about image-building than ecosystem restoration. The report casts doubt on whether Vantara is fulfilling any meaningful conservation role or simply repackaging wildlife as spectacle.
The Megaphone of Money
In any democracy, transparency and accountability are critical—especially when public assets like wildlife are at stake. But in this case, the sheer might of the Ambani empire makes critical questioning a lonely pursuit. Reliance owns or influences vast swathes of India’s media landscape, and there is little appetite for investigative scrutiny.
A conservationist from Goa aptly remarked, “When Mumbai’s Byculla Zoo imported eight penguins in 2016, the country debated their well-being for weeks. Today, hundreds of exotic animals are being imported—and no one’s even blinking.”
That silence may be the most worrying signal of all.
A Broader Problem
India’s wildlife situation is undeniably dire. Habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, and poor state-run rehabilitation centres are real challenges. But should this crisis justify the rise of unregulated private zoos?
There’s a growing global conversation around private wildlife collections, even when operated under the guise of sanctuaries. The line between conservation and commercialisation blurs when billionaires build ecosystems that are accountable to no one but themselves.
If Vantara is indeed about saving animals, why isn’t it partnering more transparently with global conservation bodies? Why not subject itself to third-party environmental audits? Why silence critical scrutiny instead of embracing it?
The Bigger Picture
What Vantara reflects is not just the story of one mega-sanctuary but the direction of India’s conservation ethos. The temptation to replace systemic reform with grand
