Environment › Protected areas and habitats
Protected areas, tiger reserves and eco sensitive zones
Protected areas as places: national parks, sanctuaries, tiger, elephant and biosphere reserves, and community and conservation reserves, with their boundaries, eco sensitive zones, relocation and the clearances given for projects inside them. Prelims has asked which river flows through a park, which tiger reserve has the largest critical tiger habitat, and under which law eco sensitive zones are declared.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2023: what changes once an area is notified a Community Reserve
- Prelims 2020: where the musk deer is found in the wild
- Prelims 2017: the reserve that connects the Eastern and Western Ghats
- 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
3 Aug 2026 · Prelims and Mains
India's Protected Area network
A park, a sanctuary and a tiger reserve are three notifications under one Act rather than three different kinds of place, and the count of them is how India reports its conservation to itself.
25.17%forest and tree cover, as a share of India's geographical area
1,134Protected Areas
58Tiger Reserves
33Elephant Reserves
- 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.
- Tiger corridors number 32, and elephant corridors 150.
- The India State of Forest Report 2023 put forest and tree cover 1,445.81 sq km above the 2021 report.
- The Centre's release named the Green India Mission, CAMPA, Nagar Van Yojana, MISHTI and the 2018 National Action Plan on Forest Fires as the programmes behind the numbers.
24 Aug 2026 · Prelims and Mains
Kaziranga National Park
The fight over Kaziranga is not about the park but about the hills beside it, because every monsoon the animals leave the park for them.
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
- An eco-sensitive zone is 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.
- 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 · Prelims and Mains
Manas National Park
Manas is protected twice over and governed by a council rather than by the State alone, which is why an order about it has to name both.
- 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 Gauhati High Court ordered Assam and the 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.
12 Aug 2026 · 6 Aug 2026 · Prelims
Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve
India's largest tiger reserve lost three tigers in July, and one of them was poached. The inquiry that followed asked for more feet in the forest rather than for new rules.
- Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam lies in the Nallamala hills of the Eastern Ghats, across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
- It holds the country's largest Critical Tiger Habitat.
- Seven people were arrested over the poached tiger.
- The panel asked Andhra Pradesh to raise anti-poaching base camps from about 100 to 125 within a month.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2020: the Tiger Reserve with the largest Critical Tiger Habitat
The Hindu, 12 Aug 2026: Raise tiger base camps to 125 within a month, panel tells Andhra Pradesh (opens in a new tab) · The Hindu, 6 Aug 2026: Seven arrested in Giddalur after tiger poaching incident at NSTR (opens in a new tab)
21 Aug 2026 · Prelims
Satkosia Tiger Reserve
Satkosia had lost its tigers years before the evictions now being examined, which is the uncomfortable part of the case. Odisha has set up a high level committee to find out whether the villages that were moved out went willingly.
2007
12 tigers
2018-19
One tiger
2022
The tiger census recorded none
- Satkosia Tiger Reserve is in Odisha.
- The committee will test compliance with the two Acts and with NTCA guidelines.
- It may recommend compensation or the restoration of rights.
13 Aug 2026 · Prelims
Voluntary relocation from tiger reserves
Two separate laws govern moving a village out of a tiger's core area, and both say the same thing about it. The Centre set the position out again in August, with the money and the committees that go with it.
Wild Life (Protection) Act
- Section 38V(5): moving a village out of a core or critical tiger habitat must be voluntary
Forest Rights Act
- Section 4(2): the same relocation must be voluntary
- Section 4(5): no one is evicted until their claim is recognised and verified
- The informed consent of the gram sabha is required
- Assistance for voluntary relocation was raised from ₹10 lakh to ₹15 lakh per family in 2021.
- A State Level Monitoring Committee and a District Level Implementing Committee oversee the process.
See also: Satkosia Tiger Reserve
PIB, 13 Aug 2026: Relocation from tiger reserves must be voluntary (opens in a new tab)
Also filed elsewhere
- The Hanle Dark Sky Reserve · on Chemicals, noise, light and soil pollution
Ladakh's administration notified the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve (HDSR) in December 2022, India's first and still its only one.
- Mining buffers around wetland reserves · on Wetlands and Ramsar sites
A national park carries a regulated belt around it; a conservation reserve carries none, and that is the gap the Supreme Court has been closing one order at a time.
- The Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area · on Forests, grasslands and mountain ecosystems
A belt is drawn around one park by the Centre, but an Ecologically Sensitive Area can be drawn over a whole mountain range, and eleven years on nobody has agreed where the line falls.