Environment › Protected areas and habitats › National parks and sanctuaries
Protected areas and eco-sensitive zones
India counts 1,134 Protected Areas, and the disputes over them in August 2026 were all about their edges rather than the land inside them. Assam wants the belt around Kaziranga cut from ten kilometres to one or three, the Gauhati High Court has ordered a halt to fresh encroachment inside Manas, and the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area is still unnotified after eleven years and five lapsed drafts.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2020: the Tiger Reserve with the largest Critical Tiger Habitat
- Prelims 2020: where the musk deer is found in the wild
- Prelims 2019: ranking States by percentage of forest cover to State area
- Prelims 2017: the number of States the Western Ghats are spread over
- Prelims 2016: the Gadgil and Kasturirangan reports and protection of the Western Ghats
- Prelims 2016: the aim of the Green India Mission
- Prelims 2014: the law Eco-Sensitive Zones are declared under, and what they prohibit
- Prelims 2013: the river flowing through each named national park, Kaziranga among them
The ladder of protection
- A national park and a wildlife sanctuary are notified by a State government under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and both are counted, with conservation and community reserves, as Protected Areas.
- A tiger reserve is declared under the same Act on the National Tiger Conservation Authority's recommendation, usually over land already protected as a park or a sanctuary.
The belt outside the boundary
- An eco-sensitive zone and an Ecologically Sensitive Area are both notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which is what lets the Centre restrict activity on land outside a park's boundary.
- A zone's width is fixed park by park in its own notification, so the ten kilometre default is a starting point to be argued over rather than a rule.
- An Ecologically Sensitive Area may be notified over a whole landscape, as the Western Ghats proposal is, rather than as a belt around one park.
What India protects, by the numbers
25.17%forest and tree cover, as a share of India's geographical area
1,134Protected Areas
58Tiger Reserves
33Elephant Reserves
- Tiger corridors number 32, and elephant corridors 150.
Kaziranga
Kaziranga National Park
Where
- Assam, on the floodplain of the Brahmaputra, which forms its northern boundary
- The Diphlu runs through it, and the Karbi Anglong hills rise to its south
What it holds
- About two thirds of the world's greater one-horned rhinoceros, Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List
Why the hills matter
- Animals cross to the Karbi Anglong hills when the monsoon floods the grassland
- The same hills carry an elephant corridor
Manas
- Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve lies in Assam on the Bhutan border, is a World Heritage Site, and is known for the pygmy hog, the hispid hare and the golden langur.
- It falls within the Bodoland Territorial Region, run under the Sixth Schedule by the Bodoland Territorial Council, which is why orders on the park name the Council beside the State.
The Western Ghats
- The Ghats run through six States, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and are a World Heritage Site and one of the world's biodiversity hotspots.
Two panels, two maps
Gadgil panel, reported 2011
- The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, chaired by Madhav Gadgil
- Recommended 142 talukas as an Ecologically Sensitive Area
- Graded regulation, built upward from the gram sabha
Kasturirangan group, reported 2013
- The High Level Working Group, chaired by K. Kasturirangan
- Cut the area to about 37 per cent of the Ghats
- Prohibitions confined to specified activities
What has happened
24 Aug 2026
Assam moved to seek a cut in Kaziranga's eco-sensitive zone from ten kilometres to one to three, which activists say would open the land to mining and tourism.
- The Supreme Court's Central Empowered Committee pulled the State up for not stopping mining in the Karbi Anglong hills, banned since 2019.
- A National Green Tribunal petition alleges mechanised sand mining in the Deihori river inside the proposed zone.
The Hindu, 24 Aug 2026: Supreme Court panel pulls up Assam government for inaction on mining near Kaziranga (opens in a new tab) · The Hindu, 27 Aug 2026: Kaziranga under pressure from mining and a smaller buffer zone (opens in a new tab)
7 Aug 2026
The Gauhati High Court ordered Assam and the Bodoland Territorial Council to halt fresh encroachment in Manas.
- The petition alleges encroachment of the core area, including land held by a government seed farm.
- An official letter of 2025 recorded over 14,500 bighas occupied.
3 Aug 2026
The Centre published updated counts of forest cover, protected areas and tiger and elephant reserves.
- The India State of Forest Report 2023 put forest and tree cover 1,445.81 sq km above the 2021 report.
- The release named the Green India Mission, CAMPA, Nagar Van Yojana, MISHTI and the 2018 National Action Plan on Forest Fires.
1 Aug 2026
A fifth draft notification lapsed with the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area still unnotified, and the expert panel's tenure was extended by a year.
- Gujarat and Goa appear to agree, Maharashtra wants a review, and Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are still negotiating.
- Karnataka has opposed throughout, citing livelihoods in its ten Ghats districts, so a phased State by State rollout is possible.
The Hindu, 1 Aug 2026: Western Ghats: conservation with science and dialogue (opens in a new tab)