50 years of project tiger

50 years of project tiger

Subject: Environment

Section: Species in news

Concept-

Tiger

• India has 70% of the global tiger population.
• The International Tiger Day celebrated on 29th July is an annual event marked to raise awareness about tiger conservation.
• First international Tiger’s day was celebrated in 2010 at the St. Petersburg Tiger Summit.
• The Tiger, Panthera Tigris, is listed as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species TM. The largest of all cats, the tiger once occurred throughout central, eastern and southern Asia.

Project tiger

The Govt. of India had launched “Project Tiger” on 1st April 1973 to promote conservation of the tiger. Project Tiger has been the largest species conservation initiative of its kind in the world. While the field implementation of the project, protection and management in the designated reserves is done by the project States, who also provide the matching grant to recurring items of expenditure, deploy field staff/officers, and give their salaries, the Project Tiger Directorate of the Ministry of Environment and Forests was mandated with the task of providing technical guidance and funding support.

Project Tiger started tiger conservation starting with nine reserves – Manas, Palamau, Simlipal, Corbett, Ranthambhore, Kanha, Melghat, Bandipur and Sundarban.

The implementation of Project Tiger over the years has highlighted the need for a statutory authority with legal backing to ensure tiger conservation. On the basis of the recommendations of National Board for Wild Life chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister, a Task Force was set up to look into the problems of tiger conservation in the country. The recommendations of the said Task Force, interalia include strengthening of Project Tiger by giving it statutory and administrative powers, apart from creating the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau. It has also recommended that an annual report should be submitted to the Central Government for laying in Parliament, so that commitment to Project Tiger is reviewed from time to time, in addition to addressing the concerns of local people.

NTCA

Considering the urgency of the situation, Project Tiger has been converted into a statutory authority (NTCA) by providing enabling provisions in the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 through an amendment, viz. Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006. This forms one of the urgent recommendations of the Tiger Task Force appointed by the Prime Minister.

The NTCA addresses the ecological as well as administrative concerns for conserving tigers, by providing a statutory basis for protection of tiger reserves, apart from providing strengthened institutional mechanisms for the protection of ecologically sensitive areas and endangered species. The Authority also ensures enforcing of guidelines for tiger conservation and monitoring compliance of the same, apart from placement of motivated and trained officers having good track record as Field Directors of tiger reserves. It also facilitates capacity building of officers and staff posted in tiger reserves, apart from a time bound staff development plan.

The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006 has come into force with effect from the 4th of September, 2006, and the NTCA has also been constituted on the same date.

St. Petersburg Declaration on Tiger Conservation

• This resolution was adopted In November 2010, by the leaders of 13 tiger range countries (TRCs) assembled at an International Tiger Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia
• It aimed at promoting a global system to protect the natural habitat of tigers and raise awareness among people on white tiger conservation.
• The resolution’s implementation mechanism is called the Global Tiger Recovery Program whose overarching goal was to double the number of wild tigers from about 3,200 to more than 7,000 by 2022.
• 13 Tiger range countries are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Conservation efforts- National and Global:

• The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has launched the M-STrIPES (Monitoring System for Tigers – Intensive Protection and Ecological Status),a mobile monitoring system for forest guards.
• At the Petersburg Tiger Summit in 2010,leaders of 13 tiger range countries resolved to do more for the tiger and embarked on efforts to double its number in the wild, with a popular slogan ‘T X 2’.
• The Global Tiger Initiative (GTI)program of the World Bank,using its presence and convening ability, brought global partners together to strengthen the tiger agenda.
• Over the years, the initiative has institutionalized itself as a separate entity in the form of the Global Tiger Initiative Council (GTIC),with its two arms –the Global Tiger Forum and the Global Snow Leopard Ecosystem Protection Program.

Global

With the phasing out of the Global Tiger Initiative by the World Bank, which was a global alliance to conserve the tiger, the wild tiger agenda has been mandated to the inter-governmental platform, the Global Tiger Forum (GTF), as an implementing arm of the restructured Global Tiger Initiative Council (GTIC). A concerted portfolio of performance by tiger range countries (TRCs) is reviewed with complimentary support as a part of the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP).

Global Tiger Forum is an international intergovernmental body exclusively set up for the conservation of tigers in the wild in the range countries. Out of the 13 tiger range countries, seven are currently members of GTF: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam besides non-tiger range country U.K. The secretariat is based in New Delhi, India. GTF’s goal is to highlight the rationale for tiger preservation and provide leadership and a common approach throughout the world in order to safeguard the survival of the tiger, its prey, and its habitat.