India has reported a significant surge in its tiger population, with numbers rising by 30 per cent in the last four years due to conservation programmes.
"While the tiger population is falling in the world, it is rising in India. This is great news," said the country's environment minister Prakash Javadekar. According to the latest census, there were 2,226 tigers in India last year compared to just 1,706 in 2010.
Javadekar claimed the increase in the country's tiger population was a testament to the success of government conservation policies and said that India was ready to play a larger role in global tiger conservation, the BBC reports.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Measures including the creation of a specialist Tiger Protection Force to combat poaching, action to prevent humans from encroaching into the tigers' habitat and better management of the country's 40 tiger reserves have been introduced in recent years.
Tigers are widely targeted by poachers who hunt them for their meat and skin. The animal's body parts are also sold to China's lucrative traditional medicine market. India was thought to have more than 40,000 tigers when it gained independence from Britain in 1947.
However, environmentalists have raised concerns that the conservation measures may not continue under India's new government which came to power in May last year and has "diluted environmental safeguards as it pushes for faster economic growth" according to Quartz India.
It notes that much of the work to increase the tiger population was done before Narendra Modi came to power and under his administration new plans to expand mining and development projects have been approved in and around national parks and sanctuaries.
"This government is reversing all those stands," environmental activist and writer Bittu Sehgal warns. "I can be almost 100 per cent sure that it (current tiger population) won't last.
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Sudoku medium: August 23, 2025The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
-
Cloudbursts: what are the 'rain bombs' hitting India and Pakistan?The Explainer The sudden and intense weather event is almost impossible to forecast and often leads to deadly flash-flooding and landslides
-
How loss of India's vultures might have led to half a million deathsUnder the Radar Near extinction of the invaluable carrion eaters in 1990s left cattle carcasses piled up and disease spreading widely
-
India's controversial plans for untouched Nicobar IslesUnder the radar Experts say $9bn development will threaten the existence of remote island's nomadic inhabitants
-
White paint: a cool solution for climate change?feature Cooling properties of new ultra-white formula could offset worsening global warming
-
Flooding in India and Bangladesh leaves millions homeless and at least 28 deadSpeed Read
-
Why animal-human conflict is on the rise in Indiafeature Report says coexistence with wild animals in India is ‘reaching the threshold of tolerance’
-
How India’s heatwave is pushing the limits of human endurancefeature Dozens are thought to have died, schools have been forced to close and taps have run dry
-
Shell’s North Sea oil U-turn: ‘a first victory in a longer war’?Speed Read Controversy after oil giant pulls out of proposed Cambo project
