Centre launches projects to manage tigers, sloth bears outside reserves

The Centre has launched two projects for the management of tigers and sloth bears living outside protected areas.

These projects were announced during the National Board for Wildlife meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2024.

With India’s tiger population growing at 6.1 per cent annually, over 35-40 per cent of tigers – around 1,325 individuals – now live outside tiger reserves, which makes them vulnerable to poaching and increases the frequency of man-animal conflict. Over 2,360 tigers live inside the tiger reserves.

The first phase of the project will cover 40 forest divisions spread in nine states, including Karnataka, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Assam, Haryana and Telangana.

Tigers are spread in Shivalik Hills and Gangetic Plains, Central India and Eastern Ghats, Western Ghats, Sunderbans, Northeast Hills and Brahmaputra Floodplains.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has been designated as the coordinating agency. The project has a proposed outlay of Rs 176.45 crore until 2026-27.

“As nearly one-third of tigers now live outside reserves, human-tiger conflicts are becoming more frequent, threatening both people and wildlife. To address this, the project has been conceived with NTCA as the central coordinating body and field-level execution by the states,” the Environment Ministry said.

The project will use modern technologies like Artificial Intelligence and drones. It will also include capacity-building programmes to train field staff, veterinarians and local volunteers in conflict management.

According to parliamentary data, 378 people were killed in tiger-related conflicts between 2020 and 2024.

Separately, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in Dehradun will lead a national conservation action project for sloth bears to maintain secure and viable populations across their natural range. The project envisions coexistence between local communities and sloth bears, which have a vulnerable, patchy distribution across 20 Indian states, constituting approximately 90 per cent of its current global range.

The WII will monitor population status and distribution and develop strategies for managing human–bear conflicts.