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India to apply CA|TS standards across all Tiger Reserves giving boost to conservation efforts

28 July 2020 - In a major boost to tiger conservation ahead of Global Tiger Day, India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), of  the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change today announced the adoption of the Conservation Assured | Tiger Standards [CA|TS] across all of the country’s 50 Tiger Reserves.
 

These 50 Tiger Reserves are spread across 18 states covering an area over 72,000km2 and contain over 70% of the world’s tiger population.
 
The announcement means India is the first among the 13 tiger range countries to nationally adopt CA|TS, which are a set of minimum standards setting the benchmark for managing conservation sites. This brings India’s total number of registered sites to 94 (which includes sites outside the Tiger Reserves).
 
CA|TS is a conservation tool that sets best practice and standards to manage target species, and encourages assessments to benchmark progress. Tigers are the first species selected for the initiative. Launched in 2013, the tool was developed in collaboration with field managers, tiger experts and government agencies engaged in tiger conservation.
 
This announcement further strengthens India’s contribution to the global goal set in 2010 to double the number tigers in the wild, known as TX2. India reported a population of 2,967 wild tigers during the last population estimation  in 2018.
 
Dr. SP Yadav, ADG (Project Tiger) and Member Secretary, National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change, Government of India: “India, on the eve of Global Tiger Day, has decided to extend the Conservation Assured Tiger Standards (CA|TS) across all its tiger reserves for further strengthening and improving management interventions.”
 
Dr. Sejal Worah, Chair of the Tigers Advisory Group at WWF International and Programme Director at WWF India: “As a partner in the implementation of CA|TS as well as in tiger conservation, WWF India welcomes the announcement by NTCA on the extension of CA|TS to all 50 Tiger Reserves in India. This further establishes India’s commitment and leadership towards conservation of wild tigers.”
 
Stuart Chapman, Lead of WWF’s Tigers Alive Initiative: "India’s adoption of CA|TS across its tiger reserves has brought the majority of the world’s wild tigers under one conservation management standard. This will strengthen efforts for tiger conservation  in India and provide a model for other tiger range countries to follow”.
 
Sugoto Roy, the Chair of CA|TS International Executive Committee: “CA|TS is an excellent diagnostic tool designed to help site-based tiger management and conservation to be effective and assist in identifying gaps, challenges and resources needed to catalyse the recovery of tigers.”
 
Dr Rajesh Gopal, Secretary general of Global Tiger Forum: “The countries that have still not adopted the CA|TS framework must be encouraged to do so, as this will assist in establishing a uniform and robust framework for the global tiger recovery programme.”
 
The other six tiger range countries implementing CA|TS across 75 sites include Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Malaysia, Nepal and Russia.
 
CA|TS is a partnership of tiger range governments, inter-governmental agencies, institutions, NGOs and conservation organisations. WWF is helping tiger range countries to implement CA|TS, and is joined by other key global organisations,  such as Equilibrium Research, Fauna & Flora International, Freeland, Global Tiger Forum, Global Wildlife Conservation, IUCN, Panthera, Smithsonian Institution, UNDP, WildTeam, World Commission on Protected Areas and the Zoological Society of London.
 
CA|TS is being adopted for use beyond tigers, including potentially jaguars, lions and freshwater dolphins.
 
Contact:
 
Khalid Pasha, CA|TS Manager, WWF Tigers Alive Initiative, email: kpasha@wwf-tigers.org

Tristan Tremschnig, Communications Director, WWF Tigers Alive Initiative (based in Hong Kong), email: tristant@wwf-tigers.org