Tiger Conservation Initiatives

Tiger Conservation Initiatives

Subject: Environment

Section: Conservation

Context- This year is the year of the TX2 global commitment of doubling wild tigers.

Concept-

• 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.

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.

Project Tiger

Project Tiger is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change launched in 1973 to provide central assistance to the tiger States for tiger conservation in designated tiger reserves in India. The project is administered by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

National Tiger Conservation Authority

National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

It was established in 2005 following the recommendations of the Tiger Task Force.

It was constituted under enabling provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as amended in 2006, for strengthening tiger conservation, as per powers and functions assigned to it.

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.