Why has India got another tiger reserve? Premium

Madhav National Park declared as India's 58th tiger reserve, part of Project Tiger's successful conservation efforts.

On March 9, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav announced that the Centre had declared the Madhav National Park in Madhya Pradesh as the country’s 58th tiger reserve. This is the ninth tiger reserve in the State, the highest among the States. Maharashtra has six; Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka have five each.

While tigers were historically abundant in India, hunting, poaching and the colonial exploitation of forests for timber started a precipitous decline in their numbers in the early 20th century. It was estimated in 1964 that there would have been around 40,000 tigers in the country at the turn of the 20th century. By the 1960s, these numbers were down to between 2,000 and 4,000, attributed to wanton hunting aided by a proliferation of gun licences issued in the years following 1947, improved access to the forest, clearing of large tracts of forests for various purposes, mushrooming of the new businesses of “Shikar Companies” and fur trade.

Following an alarm raised by naturalists, the Indian Board for Wild Life (IBWL) — the earlier avatar of the National Board for Wild Life — in a meeting in New Delhi in July, 1969 recommended a total ban on the export of all wild cat skins, including tigers. The same year, the 10th Assembly of International Union for Conservation of Nature met in Delhi and included the tiger in its “Red Data Book” as an endangered species and adopted a resolution calling for a ban on the killing of tigers. When numbers further dwindled to nearly 1,863, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi commissioned an 11-member Task Force to investigate the problem and prepare a project to preserve the tiger in the wild in India. In August 1972, the Task Force recommended eight tiger forests spread across India to be brought under the purview of ‘Project Tiger,’ as this mission came to be called. On April 1, 1973, Project Tiger was inaugurated at Corbett tiger reserve with nine tiger reserves announced across India — Corbett (then in Uttar Pradesh, now in Uttarakhand), Palamau (then in Bihar, now in Jharkhand), Simlipal (Odisha), Sundarbans (West Bengal), Manas (Assam), Ranthambore (Rajasthan), Kanha (Madhya Pradesh), Melghat (Maharashtra) and Bandipur (Karnataka) – which were representative of the various tiger habitats in the country.

The Project Tiger (replaced by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) since 2006) guidelines made it mandatory for every tiger reserve to be managed in accordance with a site-specific management plan. Project Tiger established a template for scientific management of protected areas in India. It laid down the concept of establishing a ‘core zone’ and a ‘buffer zone’, prescribed interventions for protection, habitat improvement, field data collection relating to change in the composition of flora and fauna on account of protection, animal estimation and other aspects. The guidelines also established Tiger Conservation Plans to ensure: i) Protection and site specific habitat managements for viable population of tigers, prey and co-predators, ii) ecologically compatible land uses in the tiger reserves and areas linking one protected area or tiger reserve to another for addressing the livelihood concerns of local people. The NTCA guidelines for preparing Tiger Conservation Plans, cognizant of constraints imposed by small reserves embedded in human land uses, aimed to create source populations within tiger reserves with corridor links between sources and to sink habitats. Sources are places where animal numbers are growing, and sinks are where they are dwindling, and must be supplemented by bringing in animals to boost numbers to sustainable numbers. To establish a reserve, the Centre gets a proposal from the State, the NTCA recommends the proposal to the State after due diligence, the State government notifies the area as a Tiger Reserve.

Under Project Tiger guidelines, 60% of the funds for conservation are provided by the Centre, while the rest is borne by the concerned State. In the case of Northeastern and Himalayan States, the Centre covers 90% of the funds. These activities include anti-poaching initiatives, habitat improvement and water development, addressing human-animal conflicts, designating inviolate spaces, and relocating villages from critical tiger habitats within a timeframe by offering a better relocation package. It also supports States in settling the rights of displaced people, rehabilitating traditional hunting tribes living in and around tiger reserves, conducting independent monitoring, and evaluating tiger reserves.

With an estimated area of 165.32 sq km, it was first notified as a National Park in Madhya Pradesh in 1956 under the MP National Parks Act, 1955. Now, the Madhav National Park and tiger reserve has a core area of 355 sq km, with a buffer zone of 4-6 sq km. It did not have a tiger population till 2023, when a male tiger and two females were relocated there. Today, the population has grown to seven. However, the Madhav reserve is an important connecting corridor to the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan. It is also connected to Kuno National Park, which now has a captive cheetah population. Experts speculate that there could be competition among these predators for the prey base of deer, leading to its complex dynamics.

Madhya Pradesh boasts several prominent tiger reserves, such as Kanha, Panna, and Bandhavgarh. Due to successful conservation strategies, the State has the highest number of tigers (785). However, the Kuno-Madhav forest division, in the northern part of the State, has historically been relatively neglected. With Kuno gaining prominence as an emerging cheetah reserve, a more centralised management strategy is expected to oversee both cheetah and tiger populations, contributing to the region’s long-term development as a wildlife spot.