The Project Tiger
The Government of India had launched "Project Tiger" on 1st April 1973 to promote conservation of the tiger. Project Tiger has been the largest species conservation initiative of its kind in the world. While the field implementation of the project, protection and management in the designated reserves is done by the project States, who also provide the matching grant to recurring items of expenditure, deploy field staff/officers, and give their salaries, the Project Tiger Directorate of the Ministry of Environment and Forests was mandated with the task of providing technical guidance and funding support.
The implementation of Project Tiger over the years has highlighted the need for a statutory authority with legal backing to ensure tiger conservation. On the basis of the recommendations of National Board for Wild Life chaired by the Hon'ble Prime Minister, a Task Force was set up to look into the problems of tiger conservation in the country. The recommendations of the said Task Force, interlaid include strengthening of Project Tiger by giving it statutory and administrative powers, apart from creating the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau. It has also recommended that an annual report should be submitted to the Central Government for laying in Parliament, so that commitment to Project Tiger is reviewed from time to time, in addition to addressing the concerns of local people. Broadly the urgent recommendations of the said Task Force are as below:
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Reinvigorating the constitution of governance.
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Strengthening efforts towards protection of tiger, checking poaching, convicting wildlife criminals and breaking the international trade network in wildlife body parts and derivatives.
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Expanding the undisturbed areas for tiger by reducing human pressure.
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Repair the relationship with local people who share the tigers habitat by fielding strategies for coexistence.
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Regenerate the forest habitats in the fringes of the tigers protective enclaves by investing in forest, water and grassland economies of the people.