'India has 70% of world's tigers; conservation has improved': Javadekar on Tiger Day eve

Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday released the 4th All India Tiger report on the estimation of tiger population in the country on the eve of Global Tiger Day. Addressing a press conference, Javadekar revealed that India accounted for 70% of the world's tiger population and 8% of the world's biodiversity. 

"We have a large amount of flora and fauna that we are proud of, our effort is to improve the environment and biodiversity. We account for 70% of the world's tiger population. We are in a leading position and we are ready to work with all the 13 tiger range countries. We are working for their training, capacity building, management of tiger reserves," he said.

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All 50 tiger sanctuaries in good condition 

During the brief, Prakash Javedkar released 'Project Tiger: Securing India's Small Cats' along with posters of 'Smile - Small Wildcats of India' "Conservation of tigers has improved in India. We are working with many countries in tiger conservation," he said. The Environment Minister added that the conservation of tigers ensured the well being of the entire ecosystem. He also said that the 50 tiger sanctuaries in India were in good condition. MoS Babul Supriyo was also present during the press brief held at the National Media Centre. 

'30,000 cameras to assess numbers' 

While addressing the tiger population in the country, Babul Supriyo said, "About 3.5 crore photos were taken by the camera traps in the forests in the Tiger Census 2018, 76,651 of which were of tigers and 51,777 were of leopards. More than 30,000 camera traps covered more than 3,81,400 sq km area." He revealed that these photos helped in the analysis of the number of tigers. "Initially we would just use pug prints to look for tigers. Now we have more than 30,00 camera traps to assess numbers," he said.

Prakash Javadekar also released the numbers of other endangered animals in the country saying, "India has 30,000 elephants, 3,000 one-horned rhinos and more than 500 lions." 

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