Protected areas, tiger reserves and eco sensitive zones

Prelims and Mains

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.

• 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.

Prelims and Mains

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.

• 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.

Background reading: The Hindu, 27 Aug 2026: Kaziranga under pressure from mining and a smaller buffer zone (opens in a new tab)

Prelims and Mains

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.

Prelims

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.

Prelims

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.

• 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.

Prelims

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.

• 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

Mains

The India and Bangladesh border runs through the Sundarbans along rivers such as the Ichamati, where tigers, deer and crocodiles cross water and sandbanks, so a physical fence there is an ecological question as well as a security one.