India got its 54th tiger reserve in Rajasthan’s Karauli and Dholpur districts with the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) approving a proposal in this regard. This is Rajasthan’s fifth tiger reserve after Ranthambore, Sariska, Mukundra Hills and Ramgarh Vishdhari.
The NTCA approved the proposal on August 4 and in-principle approval was cleared by the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change on August 22.
Meanwhile, in-principle approval has been granted to declare Kumbhalgarh in Rajasthan as a tiger reserve. The proposed Kumbhalgarh reserve will be spread over around 2,800 sqkm.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is a statutory body of the ministry, with an overarching supervisory / coordination role, performing functions as provided in the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
Project Tiger
• In 1973, the Project Tiger was established with the objective of utilising the tiger’s functional role and charisma to garner public support and resources for preserving representative ecosystems.
• Project Tiger is an ongoing centrally sponsored scheme of the ministry of environment, forests and climate change providing central assistance to the tiger states for tiger conservation in designated tiger reserves.
• Since its inception, the project has expanded from nine tiger reserves covering 18,278 square kilometres (sqkm) to 53 reserves in 18 tiger range states covering 75,796 sqkm, which account for 2.3 per cent of India’s land area.
• The tiger reserves are constituted on a core/buffer strategy. The core areas have the legal status of a national park or a sanctuary, whereas the buffer or peripheral areas are a mix of forest and non-forest land, managed as a multiple use area.
• Most tiger reserves and protected areas in India are existing as small islands in a vast sea of ecologically unsustainable land use, and many tiger populations are confined to small protected areas. Although some habitat corridors exist that allow tiger movement between them, most of these habitats are not protected areas, continue to deteriorate further due to unsustainable human use and developmental projects, and thereby are not conducive to animal movement.
• Project Tiger aims to foster an exclusive tiger agenda in the core areas of tiger reserves, with an inclusive people oriented agenda in the buffer.
• The conservation of tigers in India can be divided into two phases. The first phase starting in the 1970s, involved the enactment of the Wildlife Protection Act and the establishment of protected areas that helped conserve tigers and tropical forest ecosystems.
• However, in the 1980s, the trade in tiger parts began to decimate the population, leading to a shocking revelation of local extinction of Tigers in the Sariska Tiger Reserve in 2005 and thus began the second phase.
• The second phase began in 2005-06, with the government adopting a landscape-level approach and implementing strict monitoring for tiger conservation.
India home to 75% of the world’s tiger population
• India has become home to approximately 75 per cent of the world’s tiger population.
• The number of tigers in India has increased from 2,967 in 2018 to 3,682 in 2022, an annual rise of 6 per cent.
• With a 50 per cent increase in the last four years, Madhya Pradesh has the maximum number (785) of tigers in the country, followed by Karnataka (563), Uttarakhand (560), and Maharashtra (444).
• The number of tigers in Rajasthan has increased from 32 in 2006 to 88 in 2022.
• The number of tigers within the tiger reserve is highest in Corbett (260), followed by Bandipur (150), Nagarhole (141), Bandhavgarh (135), Dudhwa (135), Mudumalai(114), Kanha (105), Kaziranga (104), Sundarbans (100), Tadoba (97), Sathyamangalam (85), and Pench-MP (77).
Challenges for tiger conservation
• Despite efforts to conserve tigers, there are still several challenges that need to be addressed.
• One of the major challenges is aligning the aspirations of large-scale economic development while safeguarding forests and their wildlife and mitigating human-tiger conflict.
• Other silent and surmounting threats are climate change-related impacts on habitats and the loss of the quality of forests over time.
• Out of the approximately 400,000 sqkm of forests in tiger states, only one-third are in relatively healthier condition.
• Another significant challenge is the illegal wildlife trade. Even though poaching is illegal, the demand for tiger products remains high, and poachers continue to kill tigers for profit.
• To combat this, the Indian government has implemented strict laws and increased surveillance to prevent poaching and illegal trade.
• To ensure the long-term survival of tigers in India, a multi-faceted approach is needed, including protecting and expanding tiger habitats, preserving population connectivity, minimising human-tiger conflicts, and combating threats like habitat loss, poaching, and illegal trade.
• It is important to restore habitats, increase ungulate populations, and plan reintroduction of tigers in low density areas to tackle conflict issues.
• The involvement of various stakeholders, such as governments, NGOs, local communities, and businesses, is crucial.
• Strategies like increased patrolling, monitoring, and law enforcement, focus on “Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECM)” along with promoting eco-tourism and sustainable livelihoods for local communities, can help achieve this goal.
