New Delhi, March 28 (IANS) India is today home to 1,706 tigers, says the latest tiger census released here Monday. The figure marks an increase of 12 percent, excluding the Sunderbans mangroves which accounts for 70 tigers.
The census for 2010 was released at the March 28-30 International Tiger Conference hosted by Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh.
The latest census indicates that the Shivalik-Gangetic plains have 353 tigers, central India and Eastern Ghats have 601 tigers, Western Ghats 534, the northeast hills and Brahmaputra floodplains 148, and the Sunderbans 70.
The last census in 2006 had shown a sharp fall in tiger numbers, at 1,411 tigers in the wild. India was home to about 3,000 tigers around two decades ago.
This time, the upper limit for the tiger numbers has been set at 1,875 and the lower limit at 1,571. The average figure comes to 1,706.
If one excludes the figure for the Sunderbans, which was not counted last time, the tiger count is around 1,636, marking an increase of 12 percent of the 2006 figure of 1,411.
The conference is a follow-up to the St. Petersburg meet held last year in Russia. It will discuss challenges, plans and priorities for implementing the Global Tiger Recovery Programme (GTRP), which aims to double the wild tiger population by 2022.
It is being organised in collaboration with the Global Tiger Forum (GTF), an inter-governmental body that also has membership of the national and international NGOs and the World Bank's Global Tiger Initiative (GTI).
Besides the census report, a film on India's 30 years since the launch of Project Tiger will be released at the conference.