A Wake-Up Call for India’s Wildlife Governance

• 10 Nov 2025

This editorial is based on “Greater openness: On India and wildlife management” which was published in The Hindu on 10/11/2025. The article brings into picture the recent CITES panel’s concerns over India’s wildlife permit system, exemplified by the Vantara case in Jamnagar, exposing deeper flaws in wildlife governance. It underscores the urgent need for India to strengthen its conservation framework and global coordination to restore trust in its environmental stewardship.

For Prelims:  Project Tiger,  National Tiger Conservation Authority, Tiger Reserves,  Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972,  Elephant Reserves, M-STrIPES, Project Cheetah, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Lantana camara, Forest Rights Act.  

For Mains: Major Strides of India in the Field of Wildlife Management, Major Issues Associated with India’s Wildlife Protection Framework.

A recent CITES committee report has raised serious questions about India's wildlife permit system, recommending a pause on endangered animal imports to zoos following its investigation of the Vantara project in Jamnagar. This episode, however, is symptomatic of deeper structural challenges in India's wildlife management architecture. Despite pioneering conservation successes like Project Tiger, India's wildlife governance suffers from fragmented authority between central and state agencies, inadequate inter-departmental coordination, weak enforcement mechanisms, and poor international engagement on traceability standards. As custodian of some of the world's most vital biospheres, India must urgently strengthen its wildlife management systems and international coordination to restore global trust in its conservation credentials.

What are the Major Strides of India in the Field of Wildlife Management? 

• Flagship Species Conservation Success: The sustained, dedicated government program, 'Project Tiger' (started 1973), has successfully countered extinction threats for India's national animal through a 'core-buffer' strategy and intensive management.  
  • This achievement is a global benchmark for large carnivore conservation, showcasing effective policy implementation and enforcement. 
    • The establishment of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has institutionalized protection and monitoring. 
  • The tiger population has risen from a low of 1,411 in 2006 to an estimated 3,682 in 2022, representing over 75% of the world's wild tiger population. India currently manages 58 Tiger Reserves across the nation. 
• Landscape-level Habitat Connectivity: A major stride is the shift to landscape-level conservation, recognizing the need for wildlife corridors outside protected areas to ensure genetic flow and climate change resilience.  
  • This approach treats interconnected forests as single management units, addressing habitat fragmentation caused by developmental projects. This has led to the delineation of Elephant Reserves and better infrastructure planning. 
  • Project Elephant manages 33 Elephant Reserves across 14 states and the Forest Survey of India (FSI) works on mapping these corridors. 
• Community-Centric Conservation Models: There's a growing embrace of community-based conservation, officially establishing Community Reserves and Conservation Reserves to involve local people and secure their traditional knowledge in protecting biodiversity. This represents a crucial shift from exclusionary to inclusive management.  
  • The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 (WLPA) now legally recognizes Community Reserves.  
  • India's network now includes 115 Conservation Reserves and 220 Community Reserve as of late 2023, with success examples like the Amur Falcon conservation led by the Phom community in Nagaland. 
• Adoption of Advanced Monitoring Technology: The integration of advanced technology like M-STrIPES (Monitoring System for Tigers-Intensive Protection and Ecological Status) and AI-driven surveillance is a game-changer in combating poaching and managing wildlife populations. Technology provides a robust, scientific foundation for real-time decision-making.  
  • The use of drones and GPS for mapping and surveillance significantly boosts the capacity of field staff. This scientific management is recognized globally. 
  • Solar-powered electronic fencing and early warning systems using sensors and mobile alerts have proven effective in mitigating human-wildlife conflict, particularly in elephant corridors, reducing crop damage while ensuring animal safety. 
• Targeted Single-Species Recovery Projects: India has strengthened several highly focused, single-species projects beyond the tiger, demonstrating a dedicated effort to rescue specific threatened, endemic, or ecologically significant species from the brink of extinction. These programs utilize captive breeding and translocation.  
  • This tailored approach, often involving international partnerships, prevents local extinction and restores ecological balance in their specific habitats. 
  • Project Cheetah successfully reintroduced the species to Kuno National Park in 2022 after its extinction, and the One-Horned Rhino population in Assam reached over 4,000 by 2024, largely due to Indian Rhino Vision 2020. 
• Proactive Policy and Legal Revisions: Recent legal and policy reforms, particularly the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022, showcase a proactive governance approach to align national laws with international treaties like CITES and enhance protection. This strengthens the enforcement mechanism against wildlife crime. 
  • This demonstrates legal maturity.  
  • India's commitment to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the 30x30 target (protecting 30% of land and sea by 2030) signals alignment with global conservation goals while adapting them to domestic ecological and socio-economic realities. 
• Mainstreaming Biodiversity into Development: There is an increasing, albeit challenging, effort to mainstream biodiversity concerns into major infrastructure and developmental planning through robust Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and compensatory afforestation. This recognizes that development cannot occur at the cost of crucial ecosystems.  
  • The legal mechanism of compensatory afforestation and the requirement for EIAs attempt to balance infrastructure needs with essential ecosystem preservation. This is a progressive governance step.  
  • According to the Supreme Court-mandated Central Empowered Committee (CEC), India achieved about 85% of its compensatory afforestation goal, planting around 1.78 lakh hectares of forest area against a target of 2.09 lakh hectares between 2019-20 and 2023-24.

What are the Major Issues Associated with India’s Wildlife Protection Framework?

• Weak Enforcement and Low Conviction Rates: Despite stringent laws like the amended WLPA, enforcement remains porous, often due to inadequate training, poor investigative procedures, and the complex nature of organized transnational wildlife crime.  
  • This structural weakness severely undermines deterrence and enables criminal networks to operate with relative impunity across state boundaries. 
  • The conviction rate for wildlife crimes is alarmingly low, historically around 2-3%. Between 2020 and 2024, a total of 2,701 wildlife crime cases were registered, but the lack of successful prosecution fails to match the scale of illegal trade in species like pangolins or star tortoises, fostering a low-risk, high-reward environment for poachers. 
• Escalating Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC): The increasing HWC stems from habitat fragmentation and linear infrastructure development, pushing megafauna like elephants and big cats into human-dominated landscapes, which strains local tolerance and results in retaliatory killings.  
  • The lack of proactive, science-based conflict mitigation strategies and prompt compensation mechanisms exacerbates this critical issue. 
  • A 2024 report stated that Human-elephant conflicts led to 2853 human deaths over the past five years, peaking at 628 in 2023, a clear indicator of the conflict's intensity.  
    • In recent years, high-conflict states like Kerala have recorded hundreds of HWC incidents annually, driven by species like elephants and wild pigs encroaching on agricultural lands and settlements. 
• Dilution of CITES Compliance and Import Due Diligence: Recent developments have exposed lapses in CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) compliance, particularly concerning the import of exotic live animals, raising alarms about potential pathways for illegal wildlife trade disguised as legitimate transfers.  
  • Following the controversy over the import of exotic animals, a CITES committee recommended India pause import permits until due diligence is systematically reviewed.  
    • Issues included the non-tallying of exported and imported animal numbers, such as in one instance involving a discrepancy between 14 and 24 exported cheetahs from Mexico. 
• Poor Management of Protected Area (PA) Buffer Zones: The core PA network is often surrounded by vulnerable buffer and corridor areas that face tremendous biotic pressure from grazing, resource extraction, and infrastructure projects, undermining the landscape-level connectivity vital for wildlife.  
  • Management plans frequently fail to adequately integrate the rights and livelihood needs of dependent local and tribal communities. 
  • In states like Madhya Pradesh, the recent forest cover increase is largely due to plantations, not natural forests, which lowers ecological resilience. 
• Definitional Ambiguity in the WLPA Amendment, 2022: The recent Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022, while incorporating CITES, has created ambiguities regarding the classification of protected species, offering the same high protection level to common species as to critically endangered ones, complicating resource allocation.  
  • The new Schedule I gives the same protection to common species like the jackals as the Tiger. 
  • Critically, the provision allowing the use of elephants for "any other purpose" is prone to misuse, potentially legalizing commercial trade through a loophole. 
• Insufficient Focus on Invasive Alien Species: The framework has been historically reactive to invasive alien species, which pose a grave, yet often overlooked, threat to native biodiversity by outcompeting local flora and fauna, altering ecosystems, and transmitting diseases.  
  • The presence of invasive species like Lantana camara in over 40% of India's tiger reserves demonstrates a significant management failure that degrades native habitat quality and prey base. 
  • Also, Invasive species like the Red-eared Slider Turtle pose a severe threat to native turtle species across India.  
    • Their proliferation, often fueled by irresponsible pet trade and subsequent abandonment, highlights a failure to effectively implement the regulatory power to prevent their import and spread. 
• Under-implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006: The persistent failure to fully implement the Forest Rights Act (FRA) within and around Protected Areas remains a key socio-ecological issue, as it leads to unresolved land conflicts and alienates local communities, which are essential partners in conservation.  
  • This denial of rights compromises traditional stewardship and makes communities less likely to report or cooperate on anti-poaching efforts. 
  • The Jenu Kuruba tribe in Karnataka's Nagarhole National Park exemplifies this denial, where rights recognition is often delayed or rejected,

What Measures can India Adopt to Enhance its Wildlife Protection Framework?  

• Mandate Landscape-Level Ecological Integrity Planning: India must transition from fragmented Protected Area (PA) management to mandated, enforceable, and legally-backed landscape-level planning, prioritizing the functional connectivity of corridors and buffer zones.  
  • This requires the integration of wildlife concerns into all major infrastructure and developmental projects through a rigorous "Ecological Connectivity Impact Assessment" (EIA supplement), moving beyond simple forest diversion to assessing net ecological loss.  
  • The focus must shift to proactive land-use zoning in revenue areas adjacent to PAs, ensuring linear infrastructure is mitigated with state-of-the-art wildlife crossings and overpasses designed for large-mammal movement. 
• Establish a Dedicated Wildlife Crime Prosecution Wing: To overcome the pervasive issue of low conviction rates, a specialized, multi-disciplinary Wildlife Crime Prosecution Cadre must be established, comprising dedicated public prosecutors, forensic experts, and investigators.  
  • This unit, working under the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), would be trained in cyber forensics, chain-of-custody protocols for biological evidence (DNA), and cross-border intelligence sharing, thereby ensuring conviction-oriented case preparation.  
  • This professionalization of the legal process is crucial to dismantling organized transnational poaching and illegal trade syndicates that currently exploit judicial weaknesses. 
• Implement AI-Driven, Predictive Conflict Mitigation Systems: A national program should be launched to deploy AI and IoT-based real-time warning systems across high Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC) zones, especially for elephants and big cats.  
  • This involves using thermal-sensing drones, bio-acoustic sensors, and machine learning models to predict animal movement patterns based on weather, crop cycles, and historical data, pushing geo-fenced, language-specific alerts directly to community early warning apps. 
  • Concurrently, funds should be allocated for creating habitat enrichment zones within forest boundaries, like native grass plantations and water sources, to reduce the ecological incentive for animals to venture into human settlements. 
• Decentralize and Empower Community-Led Conservation Governance: The framework must be redefined to fully and genuinely empower Village Gram Sabhas with Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights over designated buffer and eco-sensitive zones, as per the Forest Rights Act (FRA).  
  • This devolution of authority for non-timber forest produce and micro-planning fosters a direct stake in conservation, transforming local people from potential adversaries to indispensable partners, thereby enhancing natural surveillance and intelligence gathering against poaching.  
  • Furthermore, community members should be hired and trained as 'Wildlife Custodians' under a competitive, permanent-cadre scheme, linking their livelihood directly to biodiversity health. 
• Introduce Performance-Linked Conservation Financing and Autonomy: The central government must establish a competitive, performance-based funding mechanism for State Forest Departments and Protected Area administrations, replacing the current centralized allocation model.  
  • Funds should be tied to measurable outcomes, such as sustained increases in species populations, demonstrable improvements in habitat quality (e.g., invasive species removal success), and community participation metrics.  
  • Simultaneously, PAs should be granted greater administrative and financial autonomy to swiftly hire specialized personnel, procure technology, and implement local conservation strategies without being hindered by rigid, slow bureaucratic processes. 
• Modernize the Wildlife (Protection) Act through Digitalization: A comprehensive project is needed to fully digitize all aspects of wildlife crime enforcement and monitoring, creating a centralized, real-time national database accessible to all law enforcement agencies (Forest, Police, Customs, Judiciary).  
  • This modernization involves the mandatory use of digital proof collection (e.g., geotagged evidence), a unified species identification database with genetic markers, and an e-governance portal for CITES permits to ensure traceability and transparency.  
  • Some experts, including Madhav Gadgil, have suggested major reforms to the Wildlife Protection Act, advocating for its repeal.  
    • Instead of repealing the Act altogether, it should be comprehensively reformed to strengthen its effectiveness and address existing gaps. 

Conclusion: 

India’s wildlife protection framework stands at a crucial crossroads balancing its rich conservation legacy with emerging governance and compliance challenges. Strengthening enforcement, empowering communities, and embracing technology-driven, landscape-level conservation are vital next steps. Aligning these reforms with SDG 15 (Life on Land), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) will reinforce India’s global conservation leadership. A resilient, transparent, and inclusive framework can restore both ecological balance and international trust in India’s stewardship of biodiversity.

Drishti Mains Question:

“India’s wildlife conservation efforts have evolved from species-centric protection to ecosystem and community-based management, yet governance and enforcement challenges persist.” Discuss in the context of recent developments and evaluate how India can align its wildlife conservation strategy with the Sustainable Development Goals.

UPSC Civil Services Examination, Previous Year Questions (PYQs) 

Prelims

Q. If a particular plant species is placed under Schedule VI of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, what is the implication? (2020)

(a) A licence is required to cultivate that plant.  

(b) Such a plant cannot be cultivated under any circumstances.  

(c) It is a Genetically Modified crop plant.  

(d) Such a plant is invasive and harmful to the ecosystem.  

Ans: (a)

Q. Which of the following can be threats to the biodiversity of a geographical area? (2012)

1. Global warming  
2. Fragmentation of habitat  
3. Invasion of alien species  
4. Promotion of vegetarianism  

Select the correct answer using the codes given below:  

(a) 1, 2 and 3 only  

(b) 2 and 3 only  

(c) 1 and 4 only  

(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4  

Ans: (a)

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Mains

Q. How does biodiversity vary in India? How is the Biological Diversity Act,2002 helpful in the conservation of flora and fauna? (2018)