29th July is annually celebrated as International Tiger Day or the Global Tiger Day to create awareness among the general public on the importance of tiger conservation and protection of their natural habitat and to promote the resolution of the tiger range countries to double the tiger population by 2022. The first Global Tiger Day was celebrated on 29th July 2011.
The Global Tiger Day slogan for 2018,2019 and 2020 is “Their Survival is in Our Hands”
Background:
i.On 23rd November 2010, 29th July was declared as the Global Tiger Day during the First International Tiger Forum at St. Petersburg, Russia.
ii.The St Petersburg Declaration on Tiger Conservation was signed by the countries (Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russian, Thailand and Vietnam) about to protect the remaining tiger population of the world in the International Tiger Forum at St. Petersburg, Russia on the same day.
Launch of “Status of Tigers Copredators and Prey in India”:
On 28th July 2020, the eve of Global Tiger Day 2020, Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change(MoEF&CC) released a report of 4th All India Tiger Estimation-2018, the Status of Tigers Copredators and Prey in India. It assesses the status of tigers in terms of the spatial occupancy and density of individual populations across India.
Note:
This detailed report provides information in addition to the summary report “Status of Tigers in India” launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July 2019, which states that the tiger population has increased from 1400 in 2014 to 2967 in 2019.
Detailed Report of Tiger Census:
i.This report compares the data from the surveys conducted in 2006, 2010 and 2014 with the data of 2018-19 to estimate the populations trend, landscape scales, patch colonization and extinction rates with the information on the factors that are responsible for the changes in tiger status at a fine spatial resolution of 100 Km.
ii.According to the report, the Corbett Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand has the highest number of tigers inside the reserve (231).
iii.The report states that the Dampa reserve (Mizoram), Buxa reserve (West Bengal) and Palamau reserve (Jharkhand) do not have any tigers.
iv.The report also stated that the reserves below their potential like Similipal (Odisha), Amrabad and Kawal in Telangana, Nagarjunsagar Sri Sailam (Andhra Pradesh), Palamau (Jharkhand), Sanjay-Dubri (MP), Nameri and Manas in Assam, Buxa (West Bengal), Dampa (Mizoram), Anshi Dandeli (Karnataka) and Pakke (Arunachal Pradesh) requires protection, augmentation of prey, reintroduction of tigers and targeted management for restoration.
Other initiatives:
i.The Union Minister of Environment announced that the Ministry of Environment is working on a programme to provide water and fodder to the wild animals and to provide a solution to the human-animal conflict resulting in the death of animals.
ii.For this programme the ministry will utilise the LIDAR (method of measuring distance by illuminating the target using laser light and measuring the reflection using a sensor) based survey technology, for the first time.
iii.He also released a poster on presence of small cats, highlighting the nature of tigers.
Conservation of Tigers in India:
i.Around 70% of the world’s Tiger population are in India and around 30% of India’s tigers are outside the tiger reservoirs.
ii.With the assessing management interventions through the globally developed Conservation Assured | Tiger Standards (CA|TS) framework, will be extended to all the 50 reserves of India.
iii.State wise distribution of tigers according to the “Status of Tigers in India” launched in 2019, Maximum number of tigers in Madhya Pradesh – 526 followed by Karnataka – 524 and Uttarakhand – 442.
United Nations(UN) World Wildlife Crime Report:
i.The World WISE Data between 2007 and 2018 states that Thailand and India as the main source of sized shipments of international trade, which represent around 82% of the equivalent seized shipments (where the origin was known).
ii.With the world largest wild population and very small captive population, the seized shipments in trade from India are from wild animals.
Trafficking of tiger products:
i.According to the World WISE Data India being a top supplier of illegal tiger products, out of 155 cases where the nationality of the traffickers is identified, around 29% from China followed by 18% are from India, 14% from Vietnam and 8% from Indonesia.
ii.All the parts of the tiger in the illegal products market are used for medical purposes and the bones of the tigers are considered most valuable which is used as a medicine to heal injuries related to bones, joints and ligaments.
iii.According to the latest studies the tiger parts are traded more as exotic and luxury products than as the medicinal products which was the prime reason for the tiger parts trade according to the 1994 TRAFFIC report.
About Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change:
Union Minister – Prakash Javadekar
Minister of State – Babul Supriyo
Recent Related News:
i.According to the “Poonam Avlokkan” survey the population of the Asiatic lion at the Gir sanctuary in Gujarat has seen a commendable rise to approximately 29% (28.87%) from 27% in 2015.
ii.Uttarakhand became the 1st state to release a report highlighting its conservation efforts to save over 1,100 rare plants from extinction. The project aims at Germplasm conservation so that species remains conserved with the forest department.
