Big Cat Alliance: Chanda event to focus on tiger recovery

Nagpur: Chandrapur has been selected to host the tiger conservation programme under the theme ‘Flagship of India's Forest Conservation' on May 28, in the run-up to the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) Summit 2026 to be held in June. It will be one of the five thematic conservation programmes to be held across the country.The programmes, announced by Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) on Wednesday, will focus on India's five major big cat species — tiger, Asiatic lion, leopard, snow leopard and cheetah.The Chandrapur event will spotlight India's tiger recovery efforts under Project Tiger and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), alongside Maharashtra's work in the Vidarbha landscape to improve wildlife corridors and reduce human-animal conflict.The ministry said the Chandrapur programme would underline the country's "remarkable recovery in tiger numbers" and ongoing efforts to secure habitats through scientific monitoring and community participation. Officials also pointed to eco-development initiatives and wildlife tourism projects that have generated local livelihood opportunities around tiger reserves."India is home to over 70% of the world's wild tiger population and has emerged as a global leader in tiger conservation," the ministry said in a statement, citing sustained interventions such as expansion of tiger reserves, camera-trap monitoring, surveillance systems, anti-poaching infrastructure and voluntary village relocation from core habitats.The other thematic events will be organised in Gir, Gujarat, for Asiatic lion conservation; Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, for cheetah conservation; Bhubaneswar, Odisha, for leopard conservation linked to the International Day for Biological Diversity; and Gangtok, Sikkim, for snow leopard conservation.According to the ministry, the pre-summit programmes are intended to "promote awareness, strengthen stakeholder engagement and highlight India's conservation success stories" under initiatives launched by the Govt of India. The events are also expected to reinforce the objectives of the International Big Cat Alliance, a multinational platform proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to strengthen global cooperation for the protection of major cat species.The outreach comes at a time when India is increasingly positioning conservation diplomacy alongside climate and biodiversity commitments on the international stage, while states such as Maharashtra continue to face the twin challenge of preserving wildlife habitats and managing rising human-animal interactions in rapidly developing regions.