International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) launched

GS Paper -3 (Environment conservation)

The Prime Minister said India did not believe in conflict between ecology and economy but gave importance to coexistence between the two.Protection of wildlife is a universal issue, while launching the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) that endeavours to protect and conserve big cats.

More about the news:

1.  The Prime Minister after inaugurating the programme for ‘Commemoration of 50 years of Project Tiger’ organised at Karnataka State Open University.
2. It cited the data that showed the tiger population in India stood at 3,167 in 2022. According to the data, the tiger population was 1,411 in 2006, 1,706 in 2010, 2,226 in 2014, 2,967 in 2018 and 3,167 in 2022.
3. The Prime Minister said the success of ‘Project Tiger’ is a matter of pride not only for India but for the whole world.

About IBCA:

• In July 2019, the Prime Minister had called for an Alliance of Global Leaders to obliterate demand and firmly curb poaching and illegal Wildlife trade in Asia.
• IBCA will focus on protection and conservation of seven major big cats of the world such as tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, puma, jaguar and cheetah, with range countries harbouring these species being its members.
• The Sahyadri or Western Ghats have several tribal communities, who have worked for wildlife and tigers to flourish, and their contribution in conservation efforts is laudable.

‘Protecting nature is part of culture’:

• He said that India has not only saved tigers, but created an ecosystem for it to flourish, and protecting wildlife was not the issue of just one country, but actually a global one.
• He points out that cheetah had become extinct in India decades ago, and the big cats were brought to India from Namibia and South Africa, which is the first successful transcontinental translocation of the big cat.
• India has completed 75 years of independence, and 75% of the world’s tiger population is in India. The tiger reserve in India is 75,000 sq km, in the last 10-12 years; the tiger population has also increased by 75%.

About species richness:

• India with just 2.4% of the world’s land area, contributes about 8 percent of the known global diversity.
• It is the largest tiger range country in the world. With nearly 30,000 elephants, we are the largest Asiatic elephant range country in the world.
• Our rhino population of nearly 3,000 makes us the largest single-horned rhino country in the world.”
• India is the only country to have Asiatic lions, and their population has increased from around 525 in 2015 to 675 in 2020.
• The leopard population is up by 60% in a span of four years. India added over 2,200 square kilometres of forest and tree cover by 2021 in comparison to 2019 figures.
• In a decade, the number of national parks and sanctuaries around which eco-sensitive zones were notified, increased from 9 to 468.

 Fifty years of ‘Project Tiger’

GS Paper - 3 (Environment)

The number of tigers in India has increased by 6.74 per cent from 2,967 in 2018 to 3,167 in 2022, according to the figures of the 5th cycle of India’s Tiger Census, which was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an event in Karnataka’s Mysuru to mark 50 years of ‘Project Tiger’. The PM also released the government’s vision for tiger conservation during ‘Amrit Kaal’, and launched the International Big Cats Alliance (IBCA). IBCA will focus on the protection and conservation of seven major big cats of the world, including tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, puma, jaguar and cheetah, with membership of the range countries harbouring these species.

What is Project Tiger?

1. Project Tiger was launched by the Central government on 1 April 1973, in a bid to promote conservation of the tiger. The programme came at a time when India’s tiger population was rapidly dwindling.
2. According to reports, while there were 40,000 tigers in the country at the time of the Independence, they were soon reduced to below 2,000 by 1970 due to their widespread hunting and poaching.
3. Concerns around the issue further intensified when the same year, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared the tiger as an endangered species. Two years later, the Indian government conducted its own tiger census and found that there were only 1,800 of them left in the country.
4. To tackle the problem of hunting and poaching of not just tigers but also other animals and birds, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi promulgated the Wildlife Protection Act in 1972.
5. A year later, after a task force urged the government to create a chain of reserves dedicated to tiger preservation, India unveiled Project Tiger.
6. Launched at the Jim Corbett National Park, the programme was initially started in nine tiger reserves of different States such as Assam, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, covering over 14,000 sq km.
7. Today, there are 54 tiger reserves across India, spanning 75,000 sq km. As mentioned before, the current population of tigers in the country stands at 3,167 as opposed to 1,411 in 2006, 1,706 in 2010 and 2,226 in 2014.

AAP now national party

GS Paper -2 (Polity)

The Election Commission recognised the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a national party, while revoking that status of the All India Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI).

More about the news:

• The BJP, Congress, CPI (M), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), National People’s Party (NPP) and the AAP are the remaining national parties now.
• The Commission revoked the state party status granted to RLD in Uttar Pradesh, BRS in Andhra Pradesh, PDA in Manipur, PMK in Puducherry, RSP in West Bengal and MPC in Mizoram.
• The Commission said that NCP and Trinamool Congress will be recognised as state parties in Nagaland and Meghalaya respectively based on their performance in the recently concluded Assembly elections.
• It also granted “recognised state political party” status to the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) in Nagaland, Voice of the People Party in Meghalaya, and the Tipra Motha in Tripura.

A national party:

• It would be one that has a presence ‘nationally’, as opposed to a regional party whose presence is restricted to only a particular state or region.
• They are usually India’s bigger parties, such as the Congress and BJP.
• Some parties, despite being dominant in a major state — such as the DMK in Tamil Nadu, BJD in Odisha, YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh, RJD in Bihar, or TRS in Telangana — and having a major say in national affairs, remain regional parties.
• The ECI has laid down the technical criterion for a party to be recognised as a national party. A party may gain or lose national party status from time to time, depending on the fulfilment of these laid-down conditions.

As per the ECI’s Political Parties and Election Symbols, 2019 handbook, a political party would be considered a national party if:

• It is ‘recognised’ in four or more states; or
• If its candidates polled at least 6% of total valid votes in any four or more states in the last Lok Sabha or Assembly elections and has at least four MPs in the last Lok Sabha polls; or
• If it has won at least 2% of the total seats in the Lok Sabha from not less than three states.

To be recognised as a state party, a party needs:

• At least 6% vote-share in the last Assembly election and have at least 2 MLAs; or
• It should have 6% vote-share in the last Lok Sabha elections from that state and at least one MP from that state; or
• At least 3% of the total number of seats or three seats, whichever is more, in the last Assembly elections;
• At least one MP for every 25 members or any fraction allotted to the state in the Lok Sabha; or
• It should have at least 8% of the total valid votes in the last Assembly election or Lok Sabha election from the state.

Relationship between biodiversity loss and human health:

GS Paper -3 (Environment)

Animals, plants, fungi — biodiversity holds a treasure trove of chemicals that can be used to treat disease from malaria to cancer. Its loss is driving species to extinction, dashing many hopes for medicine.

More about the news:

• Bright reds, yellows and blues — the colour of poison dart frogs offer a stark warning to curious predators. The amphibians are toxic. For humans, these colours mean something more hopeful.
• The poisonous chemicals could provide the key to medications that treat infections now resistant to the antibiotics we have already developed. They have important medical compounds that are good anaesthetics.

Basis for much needed medicine:

• Natural compounds found on frogs, plants and many other species provide the basis for many of our medicines.
• Examples such as Paclitaxel, a drug used to treat cancer, is derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, and ziconotide, a drug that is used to treat severe pain comes from cone snails.
• According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), around 70% of cancer medications are based on nature.

Human-driven extinction

• According to a 2019 report published by IPBES, around 1 million animal and plant species are currently estimated to be threatened with extinction.
• Experts say species are disappearing 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than the normal rate of extinction and that humans are to blame.
• “The two things that threaten biodiversity the most at the moment are overharvesting and land conversion.
• Since 1990, around 420 million hectares of forest — an area almost the size of the European Union — has been lost — turned into farmland and cleared for other uses.
• Growing carbon dioxide levels are leading to increased ocean acidification, bleaching corals and destroying vast habitats. Rising temperatures and unsustainable harvesting are also pushing some plant species to the edge of extinction.

Traditional medicine

• The loss of biodiversity is making it more difficult to discover new medications, it is also affecting how communities access traditional medicine.
• An estimated 4 billion people still rely primarily on natural remedies to heal themselves — whether it’s using latex from fig trees to treat intestinal parasites in the Amazon or neem oil to treat skin disorders in India.

The future of drug discovery:

• Scientists are looking to chemicals produced by sponges to provide treatment for cancers, but it is more complex than simply finding and examining single species.
• If we lose biodiversity, we’re losing access to molecules that we know nothing about. And some of those molecules might be compounds that would save the life of one of our children from an infectious disease, from cancer.”