Environment and Disaster Management › Protected areas and habitats

Protected areas, tiger reserves and eco sensitive zones

Protected areas, tiger reserves and eco sensitive zones as places: boundaries, 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.

Foundation note: Protected areas: the categories

UPSC has asked

Prelims 2020: where the musk deer is found in the wild
Prelims 2017: the reserve that connects the Eastern and Western Ghats
Prelims 2013: the river flowing through each named national park, Kaziranga among them

All 4 articles shown; the 0 that changed from 1 to 30 September 2026 are marked.Show only these

Kaziranga National Park

Prelims and Mains

Kaziranga National Park in Assam, on the Brahmaputra floodplain, holds the largest population of the greater one horned rhinoceros.

It is a World Heritage Site since 1985 and a tiger reserve since 2007.
Every monsoon the river floods the grassland and the animals move to the Karbi Anglong hills to the south.
So the fight over Kaziranga is not about the park but about the hills beside it.
An eco sensitive zone is notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which lets the Centre restrict activity on land outside a park's boundary.
Its width is fixed park by park in its own notification, so the ten kilometre figure in the guidelines is a starting point to be argued over rather than a rule.

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

Standard park facts; the dispute over the park is reported in The Hindu, 24 August 2026

What changed

27 Aug 2026New
- 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.
- Days earlier the Supreme Court's Central Empowered Committee had pulled up Assam for not stopping mining in the Karbi Anglong hills, banned since 2019.
The Hindu, 27 Aug 2026: Kaziranga under pressure from mining and a smaller buffer zone (opens in a new tab) · The Hindu, 24 Aug 2026: Supreme Court panel pulls up Assam government for inaction on mining near Kaziranga (opens in a new tab)

Manas National Park

Prelims and Mains

Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve lies in Assam on the Bhutan border.

It is a World Heritage Site, a biosphere reserve and an elephant reserve, 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.
A tiger reserve's core is the strictly protected inner zone kept free of human use, with a buffer of shared use around it.

What changed

7 Aug 2026BriefThe Gauhati High Court ordered Assam and the Bodoland Territorial Council to halt fresh encroachment in Manas. The petition alleged encroachment of the core area, including land held by a government seed farm. The Hindu, 7 Aug 2026: Gauhati High Court seeks status quo on encroachment in Manas Tiger Reserve (opens in a new tab)

Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve

Prelims

Nagarjunasagar Srisailam is India's largest tiger reserve, in the Nallamala hills of the Eastern Ghats across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

It lies along the Krishna and holds the country's largest critical tiger habitat.
An anti poaching base camp is a forest outpost inside a protected area from which staff patrol against poachers.
The density of camps is the measure the National Tiger Conservation Authority uses for protection on the ground.

What changed

12 Aug 2026BriefAfter the reserve lost three tigers in July, one of them poached, an inquiry panel asked Andhra Pradesh to raise the number of anti poaching base camps within a month. The Hindu, 12 Aug 2026: Raise tiger base camps to 125 within a month, panel tells Andhra Pradesh (opens in a new tab)

UPSC has asked

Prelims 2020: the Tiger Reserve with the largest Critical Tiger Habitat

Voluntary relocation from tiger reserves: Satkosia

Prelims

Voluntary relocation is the moving of a village out of a tiger reserve's core area with the consent of its people, and Satkosia Tiger Reserve in Odisha is the test case.

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

The two Acts, from the Press Information Bureau reply of 13 August 2026

What the law requires

Two separate laws govern moving a village out of a tiger's core area, and both say the same thing.
Section 38V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and Section 4(2) of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 allow relocation from a critical tiger habitat only after rights are recognised.
It must also be shown that coexistence is impossible, and the gram sabha must give its informed consent.
The resettlement package was raised from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh per family in 2021.
A State Level Monitoring Committee and a District Level Implementing Committee oversee it.

Satkosia

Satkosia lies on the gorge of the Mahanadi; it had 12 tigers in 2007 and none by 2022.
It was the site of India's first inter State tiger reintroduction in 2018, which failed.
Villages were relocated from its core in the years around it.

What changed

21 Aug 2026New
- Odisha set up a high level committee to find out whether the villages moved out of Satkosia went willingly.
- It will test compliance with both Acts and the tiger authority's guidelines, and may recommend compensation or the restoration of rights.
The Hindu, 21 Aug 2026: Odisha forms inquiry committee to examine relocation of villages from tiger habitat (opens in a new tab)

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A mining buffer is a belt around a protected area inside which mining needs prior approval.
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A pumped storage project pumps water uphill when power is cheap and releases it through turbines when demand peaks, so it stores energy rather than generating it.
The Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area · on Forests, grasslands and mountain ecosystems
An Ecologically Sensitive Area is a zone notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which may cover a whole landscape such as the Western Ghats rather than a belt around one park.