Mollem National Park | Bhagwan Mahavir National Park Goa with detailed map 2022

This article will deal with Mollem national park in particular, along with a list and map of all the protected areas in Goa

Mollem National Park or Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary

• Area 107 sq. Km.
• Situated in Western ghats in the Goa. It forms the boundary on East side between Karnataka and Goa.
• National Highway 4A passes through the national park.
• Mormagoa-Londa railway line also passes through this area.
• The famous Dudhsagar falls also lies in the Mollem national park.
• The nearest town to national park are Molem and Panaji.
• The National park lies in Western ghats, so recieves heavy rainfall especially during the time period of Indian monsoon.
• Almost 30 meter rainfall is experienced in this area.

Flora and Fauna

• Leopards including Black leopard.
• Tigers, sloth bear, Gaur, Sambhar, Barking deer etc.
• The forest area of this is predominantly semi evergreen and evergreen type.

Recently in news

• Ministry of Environment, forest, and Climate Change has recently granted permission for clearance of 140 hectares of forest area in Mollem national park for the passage of double tracked railway project.
• Conservationist and Environmentalists have raised the alarm against plan to cut through Mollem national park and Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary.
• The project is to connect the Castlerock railway station in Karnataka to Kulem railway station in Goa.
• Two more projects are waiting for approval which will considerably impact the protected areas of Goa, The four laning of National Highway passing through it and the Goa Yanmar Power transmission project.
• “Save Mollem” movement has been recently in news for above discussed reasons.

List of Protected Areas in Goa

Here is the List of Protected areas in Goa in their decreasing size of Area in Sq. Km.

Name	Area
Mollem National park	107
Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary	211
Mhadei(Madei) wildlife sanctuary	208
Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife sanctuary	133
Cotigaon Wildlife sanctuary	85
Bondla Wildlife sanctuary	7.9
Chorao Island (DR. Salim Ali) Wildlife sanctuary	1.7

Here is Official link of Goa forest department website refer to know more.