As International Tiger Day approaches on July 29, the goal of India’s ‘Project Tiger’ continues to safeguard the nation's tiger population and preserve biodiversity
New Delhi: With over 3,100 tigers in India, the success of project tiger in India speaks for itself and pledged to protect the ecosystem in which the big cats thrive.
To be precise, India currently has 3,167 tigers according to the 2022 census, about 75 per cent of the global numbers.
The tiger is estimated to have been present in India since the Late Pleistocene, for about 12,000 to 16,500 years.
Tigers are found in 20 states with a variety of habitats including grasslands, mangrove swamps, tropical and sub-tropical forests, as well as shola forest systems and from plains to mountains over 6000 feet.
The tiger is classified as Endangered in the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species.
Last year, India commemorated 50 years of Project Tiger, a conservation initiative launched by the government in 1973.
This year, the project's primary goal once again is to safeguard the nation's tiger population and preserve biodiversity.
Over the past half-century, Project Tiger has achieved success, with significant strides made in tiger conservation.
Initially covering nine tiger reserves across 18,278 square km, the project now encompasses 53 reserves spread over 75,796 square km, effectively covering 2.3 per cent of India's total land area.
The first phase of tiger conservation in the 1970s involved enacting the Wildlife Protection Act and establishing protected areas for tigers and tropical forests. However, during the 1980s, there was a decline in tiger numbers due to extensive poaching.
In response, the government initiated the second phase in 2005, adopting a landscape-level approach, involving local communities, implementing strict law enforcement, and utilising modern technology for scientific monitoring.
This new approach led to an increase in the tiger population and several critical outcomes, including the designation of inviolate critical core and buffer areas, the identification of new tiger reserves, and the recognition of tiger landscapes and corridors.
With significant changes in the spatial patterns of tiger occurrence and an increase in unique tiger sightings from 2,461 in 2018 to 3,080 in 2022, now more than 3/4th of the tiger population is found within protected areas.
The largest tiger population of 785 is in Madhya Pradesh, followed by Karnataka (563) and Uttarakhand (560), and Maharashtra (444).
India's Project Tiger has made progress in tiger conservation over the past five decades, but challenges like poaching still threaten tiger populations. Continued efforts to protect tiger habitats and corridors are crucial for securing the future of India's tigers and their ecosystems for generations to come.
Tigers: In numbers
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