By Kavya Dubey

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to be in attendance in Mysuru on April 9 to commemorate 50 years of Project Tiger, the attention to the big cats -- Indias national animal -- calls for a broader understanding of their numbers, conservation, and the state of their habitat over the last half a century.

On April 1, 1973, the Government of India under then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had launched the ambitious Project Tiger from the Jim Corbett National Park, now in Uttarakhand, after it legislated the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

Project Tiger is so far the largest species conservation initiative in the world. Under this project, 27 tiger reserves have been established over an area of 37,761 sq km across India. At present, India is home to as many as 53 tiger reserves.

Currently, there are about 2,967 tigers left in the country. India had an estimated 40,000 of these big cats in the last century.

A tiger census was most recently conducted in May-June 2022, the findings of which will be released by the Prime Minister in Mysuru on April 9.

Project Tiger seeks to implement a series of measures to check the dwindling population of the big cat. These measures include the provision of anti-poaching squads, prevention of grazing by cattle and even collection of minor forest products, fire protection, and launching further research programmes in this domain.

Given the urgency of the situation, Project Tiger became a statutory authority, namely National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), through an amendment -- Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006.

The NTCA addresses ecological and administrative issues pertaining to conserving tigers, in addition to providing strengthened institutional mechanisms for the protection of ecologically sensitive areas and endangered species, ensuring enforcing of guidelines for tiger conservation and monitoring its compliance.

However, long before the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 was passed, the foresighted erstwhile rulers of Mysuru were well aware of the imperatives of conserving the environment, and among the earliest, the Mysore Game and Fish Preservation Act came about in 1901. When this Act was legislated, the Kingdom of Mysore was ruled by the Wadiyar dynasty.

One of the rules under this Act "prohibited poisoning of the water of any stream or lake, and prohibit or regulate the placing or throwing of any explosive or deleterious substance therein" and even laid down regulations about capturing fish, and nets of mesh below a certain size.

When Project Tiger was launched in 1973, Bandipur in Karnataka was among the first nine reserves that were brought under the flagship programme. It included most of what was already the conserved area of Venugopal Wildlife Park, noted for Indian bison (gaur) and spotted deer. The Venugopal Wildlife Park has a network of roads for observation, and adjoins the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu.

The facility was upgraded to a national park and christened as Bandipur. It included the adjacent reserve forests and extended to an area of 874.20 sq km. Currently, Bandipur extends to Mysuru to an area of 912.04 sq km, subsuming under it the adjoining Nugu Wildlife Sanctuary - a prime tiger habitat.

The Bandipur Tiger Reserve holds great environmental significance as it includes the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, which is India's first biosphere reserve. This tiger reserve's landscape extends over Bandipur, Nagarahole, Mudumalai, and Wayanad in Kerala. This stretch is home not only to the highest number of tigers in India (about 724), but is also home to the largest strength of Asian elephants.

However, India's first inter-state tiger relocation project collapsed.

This project was embarked upon in 2018 with two tigers from Madhya Pradesh -- a male called Mahavir from Kanha Tiger Reserve and a female called Sundari from Bandhavgarh -- which were moved to the Satkosia Tiger Reserve in Odisha to curb the dwindling number of tigers in the state.

The twin intent behind the relocation was to reduce tiger population in areas with excess tigers so as to check territorial disputes, and to take tigers to areas where their population significantly plummeted due to different reasons. This project was estimated with a budget of Rs 19 crore.

Moreover, the reasons that the ambitious project did not take off as expected is said to be the trust deficit and absence of confidence-building exercise between the forest authorities and local villagers. Unfortunately, within months of the translocation, Mahavir was found dead.

However, what was actually achieved from this project was a remarkable recovery of the natural habitat, which in turn led to a spike in the population of these big cats in the reserves. The numbers rose from a meager 268 in nine reserves in 1972 to 1,576 in 27 reserves in 2003.

Added to this, there has been a complete ban on hunting and poaching of tigers has been checked to the extent of almost eliminating the malpractice altogether.

Concurrently, other species that were dwindling in numbers due to human interference have also been ensured safe natural habitat. This has been made possible as the Wild Life Protection Act of 1972 was upgraded and eventually individual national parks took the responsibility to conserve an endangered species. For instance, Gir conserves lions, Kaziranga conserves one-horned rhinos, etc.

People are thus becoming increasingly aware of the pertinent issues of wildlife and this awareness has led to a collective consciousness of not supporting blatant exploitation of wild animals. Additionally, this project has generated employment in the concerned areas.

However, these landmark achievements did not come by easily.

The ban on hunting was not unanimously agreed upon initially. Poaching was a very major issue as tiger skin and bones continue to fetch hefty sums in the international market, which is largely illegal. Although international trading cannot be checked, stringent laws on ground have kept the wild animals safe and secure.

Besides, acquiring consolidated land for conservation was a task as several people resided in those areas and resisted to giving up those lands.

The Forest Rights Act, 2006 was legislated to recognise the due rights of forest-dwelling communities and other tribes dependent on forest resources for various reasons, including livelihood, habitation and other socio-cultural needs. Thus, in some national parks, specific human settlement is permitted up to a certain extent.

There is said to have been a 30 per cent rise in the population of tigers in the last eight years. Certainly, this speaks volumes of the extensive conservation efforts made by the government for the majestic creature.

Turning lands that were once hunting grounds into conservation sites, wildlife sanctuaries, and even biosphere reserves is no small feat. But there still looms a bigger question.

Project Tiger will continue to be operational until these big cats are safely out of the category of endangered species. But with the numbers restored to a satisfactory count, the scope of man-animal conflict can also foreseeably be intensified as restoration of natural habitat for wildlife is not yet extensively coordinated with the rapidly developing and expanding human settlement plans.