Status: 04/09/2023 2:59 p.m
Tigers still live in the wild in only 13 countries, most of them in India. 50 years after the start of a protection program, the population has increased to more than 3000 animals. However, indigenous people criticize the consequences for their habitat.
For the first time in a decade and a half, more than 3,000 tigers are living in the wild in India. According to a recent census, 3,167 tigers were recorded in the wild across the country. This represents an increase of 200 animals compared to the previous census of 2019.
50 years after India began a conservation program, 75 percent of the world’s counted tigers live in the country, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an event marking the anniversary.
“India is a country where protecting nature is part of our culture,” Modi said. The count that has now been published is a “proud moment” for his country and a success for the entire world.
In 1900 there were still 100,000 tigers around the world
However, compared to the previous four-year period, the growth rate in the number of tigers slowed from 30 percent to 7 percent. In addition, the population is still vanishingly small compared to previous decades. According to estimates, in 1947 there were still around 40,000 tigers living in India.
According to estimates, 100,000 tigers were still alive in the world in 1900. The number has fallen by more than 93 percent over the past 100 years. Tigers still live in the wild in only 13 countries.
In 2010, India and the 12 other countries where tigers live in the wild signed an agreement aiming to double the number of these wild cats by 2022.
Indigenous people criticize the consequences for their habitat
The anniversary of the protection program was not only seen as a reason to celebrate in India. On the occasion of the anniversary, demonstrators wanted to point out how they had been driven away by measures to protect wild animals over the past decades. Dozens took part in a protest.
Project Tiger, which began in 1973, was preceded by a census that found tigers were increasingly threatened with extinction. Reasons for this were the loss of habitat, unregulated recreational hunting, increasing poaching and retaliatory attacks by humans. It was decided to create protected areas for the project.
However, the protective measures have resulted in numerous communities that have long lived in the affected forests having to leave their homes, say indigenous groups.