-Prakash Javadekar, Union Environment Minister
“Tiger is an incredible part of the nature and the increased number of the big cats in India reflects equilibrium in the nature” said the Union Environment Minister, Prakash Javadekar at the release of the detailed report of Tiger Census on the eve of Global Tiger Day in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Javadekar said, Tigers and other wild life are a kind of soft power India has to show on the international front. The Minister said, despite several constraints such as less land mass, India has eight percent of bio-diversity because our country has a culture of saving and preserving the nature, trees and its wild life. Noting that wildlife is our natural wealth, Prakash said, it is praise worthy that India has 70 percent of world’s tiger population. The Minister mentioned, India is tirelessly working with all 13 tiger range countries towards nurturing the tiger.
Javadekar also announced that his Ministry is working on a programme in which efforts would be made to provide water and fodder to animals in the forest itself to deal with the challenge of human-animal conflict which is causing deaths of animals. For this LIDAR based survey technology will be used for the first time. Lidar is a method for measuring distances by illuminating the target with laser light and measuring the reflection with a sensor.
Highlighting the keystone nature of the tiger, a poster on presence of small cats was also released by the Environment Minister. With the presence of nearly 30 percent of India’s tigers outside tiger reserves, India had embarked upon assessing management interventions through the globally developed Conservation Assured | Tiger Standards (CA|TS) framework, which will now be extended to all fifty tiger reserves across the country.