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Tiger
Three strands of tiger conservation moved within a month. A poaching inquiry in Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam, India's largest tiger reserve, asked for more patrolling; Odisha set up a committee on whether villages were forced out of Satkosia, a reserve whose tigers are already gone; and the International Big Cat Alliance signed a memorandum with the Asian Development Bank. Protection, rights and money, on the same landscapes.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2025: who launched the Nature Solutions Finance Hub for Asia and the Pacific
- Prelims 2020: the tiger reserve with the largest Critical Tiger Habitat
- Prelims 2018: Critical Wildlife Habitat in the Forest Rights Act
The animal
- The tiger Panthera tigris is India's national animal and the apex predator of its forests.
- It is Endangered on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
- It is a Schedule I species under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
- In India it lives in tropical moist and dry deciduous forest, mangrove and terai grassland, in tiger reserves spread across the country.
- Poaching is its main threat, alongside the loss of undisturbed core habitat and conflict with the people who live in and around the reserves.
- Project Tiger, launched in 1973, is the conservation programme, run by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory body under the same Act.
The two reserves in question
2007
12 tigers
2018-19
One tiger
2022
The tiger census recorded none
- Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam is India's largest tiger reserve, in the Nallamala hills of the Eastern Ghats, across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
- It holds the country's largest Critical Tiger Habitat.
- Satkosia Tiger Reserve is in Odisha, and had already lost its tigers before the evictions now being examined.
Relocation from a core area must be voluntary
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.
The International Big Cat Alliance
- The International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) was launched by India at Mysuru in April 2023, marking 50 years of Project Tiger.
- It is headquartered in India and covers seven big cats: the tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar and puma.
- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Manila.
What has happened
2 Sep 2026
The IBCA and the ADB signed a memorandum of understanding at a tiger landscapes workshop organised with the NTCA.
- The workshop framed tiger landscapes as natural capital, to be managed whole rather than reserve by reserve.
21 Aug 2026
Odisha set up a high level committee on alleged forced evictions of villages from Satkosia Tiger Reserve.
- It will test compliance with the two Acts and with NTCA guidelines.
- It may recommend compensation or the restoration of rights.
12 Aug 2026
Three tiger deaths in July brought a State inquiry into Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam, and seven people were arrested over a poached tiger.
- The panel asked Andhra Pradesh to raise anti-poaching base camps from about 100 to 125 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) · The Hindu, 6 Aug 2026: Seven arrested in Giddalur after tiger poaching incident at NSTR (opens in a new tab)