Calling conservation a means to achieve development, prime minister Narendra Modi said that various business groups can be involved in tiger protection programme through corporate social responsibility.

At the inaugural ceremony of the three-day Third Asian Ministerial Meeting for Tiger Conservation held in Delhi on Tuesday, Modi said, “Our genius lies in smartly integrating the tiger and wildlife safeguards in various infrastructures at the landscape level.”
 
Defining it as a “smart green infrastructure”, the PM said, “The landscape approach would also help us to involve business groups through corporate social responsibility for various initiatives towards tiger conservation.”
 
It is to be noted that the ministry of forest, environment and climate change has time and again received flak for keeping environment at stake in granting permission for mining and other industrial projects.
 
Talking about the value of the ecosystem in the economic arithmetic of development and growth, Modi highlighted the economic evaluation of few tiger reserves. “The study has highlighted the fact that besides conserving the tiger, these reserves also provide a range of economic, social, cultural and spiritual benefits. These are known as ecosystem services. Thus, we need to define conservation as a means to achieve development, rather than considering it to be anti-growth.”
 
PM also mentioned, “We are moving towards formally adopting the statute of South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network.”
 
Apparently, tiger count in the Asian region has shown an increase in the number. It includes India (2,226), Russia (433), Nepal (198) and Bhutan (103). Minister of state (independent charge) of environment, forest and climate change, Prakash Javadekar, however, pointed that as per a rough estimate, currently, there are 2,500 tigers in the country.
 
Therefore, the budget allocated for the tiger conservation has been increased from Rs 185 crores to Rs 380 crores.
 
Javadekar emphasised the need for tiger corridors. “We will incentivise project proponents to give land for compensatory afforestation in tiger corridors”.  He also talked about the unique experiment in new standard operating procedures (SOPs) for orphaned tiger cubs.
 
Besides, PM released a joint report on “Status of Tigers in the Sunderban Landscape – India and Bangladesh”. Also, forest officers received awards for their tiger conservation practices.  Periyar Tiger Reserve received the award for Best Anti-poaching practices; Satpura Tiger Reserve for Village Relocation and Settlement; Kanha Tiger Reserve for Active Management; Parambikulam Tiger Reserve for Community Participation in Eco-Tourism and Kaziranga Tiger Reserve for Conservation of Species other than Tigers.
 
The ministerial conference has been organised in the wake of Global Tiger Summit at St. Petersburg held in 2010 where range countries committed to double the tiger number by 2022 and adopted the Global/National Tiger Recovery Programme.
 
Experts, scientists, managers, and other stakeholders will be participating in the three-day meeting.  Ministers and government officials from all tiger range countries, namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, India, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russian Federation, Thailand, Vietnam, besides Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan will be part of the conference.