International Tiger day July 29

The number of wild tigers has gone up globally by 22 per cent to 3,890, from the earlier 2010 estimate of 3200, based on the best available data, according to the World Wildlife Fund and the Global Tiger Forum (GTF).

WWF Tx2 Tiger Initiative

• According to the WWF, hundred years ago there were 100,000 wild tigers. By 2010, there were as few as 3,200.
• In 2010, tiger range governments agreed to act to double wild tigers by the next Chinese Year of the Tiger in 2022. This goal is known as Tx2.
• The manner in which tigers have dwindled over the past century, with 97% of their population dying out, shows how much work remains to be done.
• Statistics from TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, show that a minimum of 1,590 tigers were seized by law enforcement officials between January 2000 and April 2014, which feed a multi-billion dollar illegal wildlife trade.

29 July, International Tiger Day

India

• As per latest official count, India is home to 2,226 tigers, representing 70 per cent of the global population of the endangered big cat species
• increase in the budget for Project Tiger from Rs 185 crore to Rs 380 crore, adding that, with the 60:40 participation of states, this increase translates to Rs 500 crore in one year for tiger protection

Background

• The Government of India has taken a pioneering initiative for conserving its national animal, the tiger, by launching the ‘Project Tiger’ in 1973.
• From 9 tiger reserves since its formative years, the Project Tiger coverage has increased to 47 at present, spread out in 18 of our tiger range states
• 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.
• The 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Wild tigers are found in 18 States in India
• The All India tiger estimation is carried out once in every four years. Based on the Tiger Task Force approval, a refined double sampling method using camera traps in a statistical framework was first used in 2006 country level tiger assessment.

Why save Tigers? Does spending crores worth the money?

• Tigers are terminal consumers in the ecological food pyramid, and their conservation results in the conservation of all trophic levels in an ecosystem
• The allocation for Project Tiger during the XII Plan is Rs 1245 crore. The expenditure during 2012-13 and 2013-14 are Rs 163.87 crore and 169.48 crore respectively

Challenges in Tiger conservation

• protection against poaching,
• fragmentation of habitat,
• securing inviolate space for tiger to facilitate its social dynamics,
• addressing tiger-human interface,
• restoration of corridors and eliciting public support of local people by providing ecologically sustainable options.