New Delhi (ABC Live): India on Friday has taken
next step in tiger conservation by announcing
Phase
IV of tiger
conservation
This
will initiate intensive, annual monitoring of
tigers at the tiger reserve level, across 41
protected areas in the country, commencing from
November 2011.
Welcoming the decision, Minister of State (I/C),
Environment and Forests, Shri Jairam Ramesh
said: “This marks an important milestone in our
comprehensive tiger conservation strategy.
Annual monitoring, (instead of only a four-year
cycle) at the tiger reserve level will allow us
to get regular updates on the number and health
of tiger populations across the country, and
will strengthen our tiger conservation efforts”.
What
is “Phase IV”?
Phase
IV of the All India Tiger Estimation exercise
will begin the process of intensive, annual
monitoring of important ‘source’ populations of
tigers.
The
methodology will be developed by the Wildlife
Institute of India (WII) and the National Tiger
Conservation Authority (NTCA), in consultation
with experts, and will use statistically sound
procedures to estimate numbers of both tigers
and their prey.
The
tiger monitoring protocol will use camera traps,
at a density of 25 double-sided cameras per 100
square kilometres, and a minimum trapping effort
of 1000 trap nights per 100 square kilometres.
This
will provide a yearly indication of the status
of critical tiger populations
around
the country, and will be critical to long-term
management and conservation of tiger
populations.
Prey
population monitoring will be conducted
simultaneously, using Distance sampling
protocols. Distance sampling will be conducted
along line transects already established in
phase I, and will use a minimum of 30 spatial
replicates for 2 km each, and a total effort of
300 km.
The
decision to begin Phase IV monitoring was made
at a workshop on‘Best Management Practices in
Tiger Conservation’, held from May 9th
to 11th.
Framework of All India Tiger Estimation The All
India Tiger Estimation exercise is one of the
most crucial components of our national tiger
conservation efforts. Monitoring efforts began
in 2006, and are undertaken every four years,
through a three-phase approach.
Phase
I: Field data collection at the beat-level, by
trained personnel and using a standardised
protocol.
Phase
II: Analysis of habitat status of tiger forests
using satellite data
Phase
III: Camera trapping to identify individual
tigers from their unique stripe patterns. This
information was used to estimate tiger numbers
in sampled sites.
The
2010 National Tiger Assessment involved three
phases, and was
carried out between December 2009 and December
2010. The previous
assessment was done in 2006.
India’s Tigers 60 percent of the world’s wild
tiger population is found in India.
Across
a system of 41 tiger reserves, the 2010 National
Tiger Assessment estimates that there are 1706
tigers (range between 1571 and 1875). This is an
improvement from the 2006 estimates of 1411
tigers (range between 1165 and 1657). However,
the increase is largely because the survey was
expanded to the entire country in 2010. Other
key outcomes of the workshop The NTCA and the
WII will decide a uniform protocol for Phase IV
monitoring, and will facilitate, train and
provide a panel of outside experts to be
involved in the same. The annual monitoring will
be
carried out by the respective Chief Wildlife
Wardens in tiger States.
In
addition to Phase IV monitoring, the ‘snapshot’
country-level estimation will continue, and will
be carried out every 4 years, covering all tiger
areas. This will be implemented by the NTCA and
WII.
All
technical publications and data relating to
tiger estimation and conservation will be placed
in the public domain by the end of June, 2011.
Special initiatives will be taken to strengthen
the management in problematic reserves like
Indravati, Similipal, Palamau and
Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserves.
