Union Minister of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav and Minister of State for Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Ashwini Kumar Choubey attended the Global Tiger Day 2022 Celebrations held at Chandrapur Forest Academy, Maharashtra.
They, visited Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) and appreciated the diversity of the landscape, its flora and fauna and had informal interactions with the forest staff & tiger reserve management to understand the field level protection issues. Tadoba Anderi Tiger Reserve has a landscape with a high-density of tigers that co-exist with the local population.
Global Tiger Day celebrations were held in Forest Academy in Chandrapur. Union Minister received the guard of honour by Special Tiger Protection Force, an exclusive regimented strike force from Tiger Reserves of Maharashtra & Kerala Forest Department.
Bhupender Yadav congratulated all tiger range countries, and commended India in particular for setting a benchmark in conservation for having & protecting more than 70% of global tiger population. He said that the Government of India has demonstrated its commitment to tiger conservation by increasing number of tiger reserves from initial nine in 1973 to the current 52, the latest being Ramgarh Vishdhari in Rajasthan.
He commended Maharashtra for implementing the unique Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Jan Van Vikas Yojana which provides for schemes for the welfare of people living in and around tiger reserves which is worth emulating by other states.
He emphasized on promoting low impact sustainable tourism in Tiger Reserves with maximization of visitor satisfaction and direct benefit sharing with locals. He shared that India has taken up a high priority conservation project to bring back Cheetah which went extinct in 1952 by embarking on cheetah introduction programme which is at an advanced stage of implementation. The bilateral agreement with Namibian Government is already signed and the MoU with South Africa will be signed soon.
Ashwini Kumar Choubey stressed that tiger symbolises power, plays a crucial role in conservation of biodiversity, forest, water and climate security. He stated that it is a matter of great pride that India is a global leader in tiger conservation and is collaborating with countries like Cambodia, China, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar and Russia for coming together for the cause of tiger conservation.
