Big Idea: To improve the existing functionality of six selected Protected Areas (PAs) and restore their ecological integrity.
Focused on India’s Protected Area Recovery, the strategic approach of this division includes habitat improvement activities, restocking and/or monitoring of populations of endangered species, providing specialised training to frontline forest staff, sensitising fringe communities (especially school children) about the importance of conservation, and legal and political interventions required to preserve or expand the territory of protected wildlife habitats.
Since 2003, WTI, in partnership with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) and the Assam Forest Department, has led conservation efforts to ‘Bring Back Manas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose flora and fauna were ravaged by militancy through the late 1980s and 1990s.
As a result of these ongoing efforts, Manas NP has been removed from UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in danger. Its area has also been tripled in size politically and 350 sq. km from the eastern part of the Manas Reserve Forest has been officially declared as the First Addition to the national park. The populations of several endangered species, including Asian elephants, greater one-horned rhinoceroses and eastern swamp deer are also being restocked.
Another crucial intervention has been conducted in the Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar.
In 2001-02, WTI filed a Public Interest Litigation forcing the state government to be more attentive to the needs of the then-beleaguered tiger reserve. From 2003 onwards WTI started a long-term conservation project
in Valmiki in partnership with the Bihar Forest Department. Derided as a ‘tiger reserve without tigers’ at the time, Valmiki TR is today a Protected Area that wildlife lovers and conservationists see as an exemplar of success. October 2017 brought another laurel to its credit, as it was selected for the prestigious ‘RBS Earth Guardian Award’ for 2017.
WTI’s Protected Area Recovery also assisted in expanding India’s Protected Area network by getting new reserves demarcated in Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra.
Current Projects Involved:
- Greater Manas Recovery Project, Assam
- Kaimur Recovery Project, Bihar
- Valmiki Recovery Project, Bihar
- Strengthening Landscape Management and Conservation (SLMC)
