The number of tigers in India has increased by almost a third in the last three years, official figures released on Tuesday reveal.
The rise, from 1,706 in 2011 to 2,226 in 2014, will encourage campaigners fighting to protect the endangered species. Activists called the new statistics “robust” and “very good news”.
Around 70% of the world’s wild tigers live in India, where their habitat has been threatened by uncontrolled development and poaching.
Repeated efforts to stem trade and protect tigers from environmental pressures failed to stop their numbers in India dwindling to 1,411 in 2006.
Prakash Javadekar, the environment minister in the emerging south Asian power, said the latest figures showed a huge success story and demonstrated that the current strategy of creating reserves staffed by specialist government staff was working.
“That is why we want to create more tiger reserves. This is a proof of India’s biodiversity and how we care for mitigating climate change. This is India’s steps in the right direction, which the world will applaud,” he said.
India, one of the world’s biggest producers of carbon dioxide but still one of the poorest countries despite recent growth, is under pressure to announce measures on cutting greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change following a recent agreement between the US and China.
The new Indian government has also repeatedly said that it will prioritise economic growth, and has been criticised by some for rolling back moves to protect the environment.
Belinda Wright, of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), said the increase in tiger numbers could be attributed to a new focus over the last three or four years which has led to better field patrolling and monitoring, among other factors.
“There still remains the habitat destruction and encroachment. Hopefully the new figures will increase the pressure on the government to tread carefully when it is a matter of development in tiger habitats,” Wright said.
The new census was conducted by the National Tiger Conservation Authority and involved nearly 10,000 camera traps. Almost 80% of the tigers counted in the survey had been photographed and identified individually, Javadekar said.
Wright, the conservationist, said a major problem was the lack of corridors linking reserves which would permit tigers to travel in search of mates outside their immediate community.
“We need to focus on tiger landscapes and gene-flow. Tigers need to disperse from the source population,” she said.
The current tiger population is a fraction of the 45,000 that roamed India a century ago.
Info: theguardian.com
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