PM Modi to inaugurate international meet on Tiger conservation

New Delhi, April 11: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate on Tuesday, April 11 the third Asia ministerial conference on tiger conservation where tiger range countries will discuss key issues including anti-poaching strategies.

"More than 700 tiger experts, scientists, managers, donors and other stakeholders are gathering to discuss issues related to tiger conservation," an official statement said.

Ministers and government officials from all tiger range countries namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, India, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russian Federation, Thailand, Vietnam, besides Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan, having ranges of snow leopard will participate in the conference.

While several tiger range countries like India, Nepal, Russia and Bhutan have registered an increase in tiger population, the status of tiger remains "endangered" and tiger population has decimated to non-viable level in some range countries, which is a cause for concern.

"We have allotted Rs 380 crore to the Project Tiger in the current fiscal year, which is an all-time high and indicates that the Government of India is committed to the conservation of our national animal 'Tiger'," said Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.

He said that due to the concerted efforts of the government and other stakeholders, more than 70 per cent of the global wild tiger population is in India. He also said that saving the Tiger means much more than ecological balance and "it is helping in combating adverse effects of climate change as well".

Additional Director General (Project Tiger) B S Bonal said that the delegates will discuss all important issues like landscape conservation and habitat management, tiger reintroduction, monitoring protocols, anti-poaching strategy, modern tools and technology for monitoring amongst others.

"The countries will report the status and progress of their global or national tiger recovery programme and will come out with a futuristic declaration for tiger conservation," he said.

It can be mentioned here that during the Global Tiger Summit at St Petersburg held in 2010, tiger range countries committed to double the tiger number by 2022 and adopted the global or national tiger recovery programme.

This conference is being co-organized by the Environment Ministry, National Tiger Conservation Authority, Global Tiger Forum, Global Tiger Initiative Council, Wildlife Institute of India, WWF and Wildlife Conservation Trust.

PTI