India now has nearly 70% of the global tiger population says Prakash Javadekar

New Delhi, July 28: On the eve of Global Tiger Day 2020, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday released the detailed report of the Tiger Census and poster saying India has 50 tiger reserves and all of them are of good quality. He also dedicated the Guinness world record recognizing the country’s efforts in monitoring its wild tiger population as the world’s largest camera trap survey of wildlife.

 

 

"Tigers are a precious gem of nature. For them to prosper, forests have to be proper with all other natural resources. Their prey animals will have to be there. The Tiger population is a certificate for the proper state of our environment. India is proud of its tiger assets. The country today has 70% of the world's tiger population. We are ready to work with all the 13 tiger range countries in their actual management of tiger reserves", the Minister said. He also added India has 30,000 elephants, 3,000 one-horned rhinos, and more than 500 lions.

 

"We have a large amount of flora and fauna of which we are proud, our effort is to improve the environment and biodiversity," he said adding that We have 8% of world's biodiversity, this is India’s real strength, this is soft power.

 

 

"For the first time in India, we will be using the LIDAR survey technology which will give the details of forest area where the work of water conversation can be done," Javdekar said while addressing the press conference. He said India will take all the lead in taking our number more and has also decided to take up ambitious water and fodder augmentation program.

 

Union Environment Minister said, "Taking care of all life-forms is part of India's culture. Indians worship nature, which is an integral part of our lives adding that We are ready to extend all possible assistance, including providing training, capacity-building to the 13 countries having a tiger population. This is because we want to save nature."

 

MoS Babul Supriyo was also present during the press brief held at the National Media Centre. Giving the information about the Tiger Census he said, about 3.5 crore photos were taken by the camera traps in the forests in the Tiger Census 2018, 76,651 of which were of tigers and 51,777 were of leopards. More than 30,000 camera traps covered more than 3,81,400 sq km area."

 

He also revealed that these photos helped in the analysis of the number of tigers. "Initially we would just use pug prints to look for tigers. Now we have more than 30,00 camera traps to assess numbers."