Lemmi: Local villagers surrendered 100 air guns during the 20th meeting of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), which was held for the first time outside New Delhi, at Pakke tiger reserve in Arunachal Pradesh today.
Rampant use of Air guns has been a problem in northeastern states. In Arunachal Pradesh, the ‘Air Gun Surrender Abhiyaan’ was launched in March 2021, which has so far yielded “great results” according to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
The meeting today was held to get first-hand information about the tiger reserves, and local issues under the chairmanship of Union Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change Bhupender Yadav. The Minister had earlier directed to hold these meetings outside Delhi in forest areas or in tiger reserves.
On the occasion, the Minister called for promoting tigers’ reserves across the country while at the same time ensuring the livelihoods of the people dependent on forests.
Minister also pressed for active involvement of locals for conservation and better development of forest areas and tiger reserves. He said that meetings should be conducted with all stakeholders including forest officials who deal with different issues, local villagers, experts, and students for the same.
Yadav released a standard operating procedure (SOP) for tiger reintroduction and supplementation in wild, a forest fire audit protocol for tiger reserves, technical manual on the Management Effectiveness Evaluation (MEE) of Tiger reserves in India prepared by NTCA.
India harbours about 70% of the world’s tiger population in wild. The tigers occupy different landscapes in the country. While some landscapes have rich and viable populations in accordance with the habitat and prey base, there are some habitats that are under-occupied for various regions but have the potential to support a better tiger population. There may be some more habitats where the population of tiger have disappeared. The SOP takes into account, the scientific knowledge available on the subject as well as conditions that may be typical to India.
Forest Fires play a crucial role in maintaining the dynamics of forests. Fire can play a vital role in healthy forests, recycling nutrients, helping tree species regenerate, removing invasive weeds and pathogens and maintaining habitat for some wildlife. Occasional fires can keep down the fuel loads that feed larger, more destructive conflagrations. However, as populations and demands on forest resources have grown, the cycle of fire has spun out of the balance and these uncontrolled and repeated fires at short succession are one of the major causes of forest degradation and biodiversity loss. Increasing forest fires have now become a global concern. So, in order to help the tiger reserve managers assess their fire preparedness and manage the complete life cycle of forest fires, the NTCA also prepared a Forest Fire Audit Protocol for Tiger Reserves which was released today.
Management Effectiveness Evaluation (MEE) of Tiger Reserves in India
Survival of tigers is dependent on conservation and management efforts and to guage the success of conservation efforts as well as to guide management inputs, it is important to assess the management effectiveness of Tiger Reserves. India is amongst the selected countries in the world that have institutionalized the MEE Process. The globally accepted framework of Management Effectiveness Evaluation (MEE) of tiger reserves has paved way for successfully assessing the tiger conservation efforts in the country. The MEE exercise in tiger reserves was initiated in 2006 and four cycle has been completed. Since then a lot of experience has been gained and need was felt revisit and review the whole process. Accordingly, a committee was constituted by the National Tiger Conservation Authority to revisit and review the MEE criteria for the 5th cycle of MEE exercise starting 2022. The intention was to bring about parity in the analysis of diverse tiger reserves of the country and to guide the evaluators with respect to the assessments to be made in the coming financial year. Based on the suggestions made by the committee, the technical manual on Management Effectiveness Evaluation (MEE) of Tiger Reserves in India is being released by NTCA.
-global bihari bureau
