India’s tiger reserve receives the prestigious award for doubling tigers in the wild

Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu has been awarded TX2 Awards after its tiger number doubled since 2010. Improving habitats, rigorous monitoring of tigers and their prey, and working extensively with local communities have helped achieve this task, say wildlife experts.

India’s Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve has been awarded the prestigious TX2 Awards after its tiger number doubled since 2010. Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in the Western Ghats in the Erode district of Tamil Nadu, spread across 1.409 square kilometres and declared a tiger reserve in 2013, is home to about 80 tigers.

The recent award acknowledges the efforts by the state governments and the local communities who have played one of the most important roles to turn a relatively new tiger reserve into one of the source populations of tigers in India.

“The TX2 Awards celebrate the remarkable contributions made by government bodies, NGOs, and local communities to strengthen tiger conservation. To honour a recently notified Tiger Reserve like Sathyamangalam with the award is a step forward to inspire others to work towards preserving this magnificent species and its habitats,” Ravi Singh, Secretary-General and CEO, World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF India), was quoted in a press statement issued today January 25.

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The awards are presented by the Conservation Assured Tiger Standards (CATS), Fauna and Flora International (FFI), Global Tiger Forum (GTF), IUCN’s Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Programme (ITHCP), Panthera, UNDP, The Lion’s Share, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and WWF. They celebrate the 10th anniversary of all 13 Tiger Range countries, including India, Nepal, China, Myanmar, Bangladesh, committed to double the global population of wild tigers by 2022.

In September this year, tiger range countries will convene at the second Global Tiger Summit in Vladivostok to assess progress towards the ambitious TX2 goal — double the number of tigers in the wild — and identify tiger conservation priorities for the next 12 years. The second Global Tiger Summit in Vladivostok offers the opportunity to set a new vision to secure their future.

“Successful tiger conservation involves continuous management and improvement of habitats at the landscape scale, rigorous monitoring of tigers and their prey, and working extensively with local communities. All of these criteria have been met with excellence, giving us these globally significant results,” Sugoto Roy, Coordinator of the Integrated Tiger Habitat Programme, IUCN, was quoted.

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With 724 tigers, the Nilgiri biosphere landscape that Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve is part of, is currently the home to the largest tiger population in the world. The adjoining areas like Erode forest division, Coimbatore forest division and Malai Mahadeshwara Wildlife Sanctuary are also emerging as important tiger habitats, creating a mosaic that allows the big cats to easily move in search of food and new territory. There are 52 tiger reserves in India.

Apart from India’s Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, the Bardia National Park in Nepal has won this year’s TX2 Award for doubling the population of wild tigers since 2010.

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‘Highest tiger deaths in India in 2021’

Meanwhile, as per the information available on the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s website, which is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, seven tigers have died between 2012 and 2019 in Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve.

It also shows that a total of 126 tigers died last year in 2021 in India — highest since it began collecting the data in 2012. In a period of ten years, the second highest deaths of the tigers were recorded in 2016 as 121. However, the Union Environment Ministry has termed the news reports as ‘lopsided’.

The statewise data shows the highest number of deaths were recorded in Madhya Pradesh at 202 between 2012 and 2020. It was followed by Maharashtra at 141 tiger deaths and Karnataka at 123 tiger deaths in the same period.

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