Tiger Census 2015: Negative Implications for Region’s Biodiversity

Tiger Census 2015: Negative Implications for Region’s Biodiversity

Question Tiger Census 2015 has negative implications for the region’s biodiversity. Discuss.

- Part of the Sunderbans forest in Bangladesh have seen a massive decline in tiger population between the years 2004 and 2015

- This was shown through the Tiger Census 2015

- As per this Tiger Census, the number of tigers in Bangladesh region of the Sunderbans has declined from 440 in 2004 to 106 in 2015

- This area spread over 6097 sq km is the only natural habitat for the nation

- This fall resulted from habitat loss, unchecked poaching, ineffective forest management and animal-human conflicts within the forest

- Methodology used to conduct Census 2015 was the use of hidden cameras to count tigers as against earlier method of counting pug marks

- This enhances the accuracy of the Tiger Census

Facts and Stats

- Tiger Census 2015 was carried out by Bangladesh-India Joint Tiger Census Project under the Strengthening Regional Cooperation for Wildlife Protection in Asia Project with funding from WB

- Royal Bengal tigers reside mainly in India with lower population in Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh

- This makes up 40% of the Sunderbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest which borders 10,000 sq km in India and Bangladesh

- Worldwide Tiger Forum 2010 declared their political will to increase global tiger population by double by the year 2022 and take steps to prevent the extinction of these tigers