Wildlife Conservation in India
by Akshaj Tammewar - 7A
India has a wide variety of animal species. Unfortunately,several species are now endangered and are at the verge of extinction.
One major factor that is aiding this is the human encroachment. Human encroachment is when humans utilise natural resources to help satisfy their needs or in other words destroy the environment to help themselves. It has caused extinction of animals and has also endangered many animal species.
Humans cut down trees which are habitats to animals for wood and construction causing the animals to lose their shelter and eventually die. If this keeps going on and on it will cause extinction of animals. Since the human population is growing, natural resources are getting utilised faster and faster and habitats are getting destroyed killing more and more animals. Human encroachment has caused threats to India’s wildlife from actions that could have been simply avoided.
Fortunately, the Indian government has built national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in response to the human encroachment that killed many animals. Compared to the number of national parks and sanctuaries 30 years ago there is now about 95 national parks and over 500 wildlife sanctuaries. The Indian government has also established several laws to protect wildlife. For example, the cutting down of a tree 1000 meters or higher is banned and poaching of animals is illegal and much more.
The Indian government has established acts to protect wildlife such as ‘Project Tiger’ and ‘Wildlife Protection Act’. Project Tiger is an act to save tigers in India as they are an endangered species and also the national animal. About 50 years ago there were over 2,500 tigers in India but now there are only about 200 tigers left. The project was launched in Corbett National Park. All the tiger reserves in India cover 1.5% of India’s surface area. It isn’t much space but it can be enough to save the tigers.
The Wildlife Protection Act is one of the largest acts present in India which is mainly to protect all of India’s wildlife by constructing wildlife sanctuaries and national parks that were initiated by the Indian government.
COP-11 was a large biodiversity conference that took place in Hyderabad in 2011. COP-11’s logo symbolizes a tiger, a dolphin, a bird, and a woman. COP-11 slogan is in Sanskrit and in English it means, “Nature protects if she is protected”.
In conclusion, the Indian government goal is to save India’s rich wildlife by building sanctuaries and national parks and to make laws against human encroachment so that India will always have a rich variety of wildlife.