Project Tiger is an ongoing Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The revised guidelines incorporate the additional activities for implementing the urgent recommendations of the Tiger Task Force, constituted by the National Board for Wildlife, chaired by the Hon'ble Prime Minister.

The objectives of the Tiger Conservation Plan are to ensure: protection of tiger reserve and providing site specific habitat inputs for a viable population of tigers, co-predators and prey animals without distorting the natural prey-predator ecological cycle in the habitat; ecologically compatible land uses in the tiger reserves and areas linking one protected area or tiger reserve to another for addressing the livelihood concerns of local people, so as to provide dispersal habitats and corridors for spillover population of wild animals from the designated core areas of tiger reserves or from

AFTER the shocking revelation in 2005 that the tigers (Panthera tigris) had vanished from the Sariska reserve in Rajasthan, Ranthambhore, also in the same State, and one of the most popular tiger habitats in the country, is approaching a similar crisis: The National Park may have only 15 big cats left.

With tigers gone in Sariska, and unchecked poaching threatening tiger populations in many other reserves, is the Indian tiger finally destined for extinction? Hopefully, with a flurry of activity at the highest levels, the tiger might just get another chance at survival.

India is protecting its tigers against all odds; the biggest threat to the tiger today is not poaching per se, but a deadly combination of the poachers

Environmentalists fear Scheduled Tribe Bill will put India's forest cover at stake.

The Tiger Task Force was set up because of a crisis

This report has clearly shown that a tiger crisis exists today, and that unless drastic action is taken, India will lose its tigers.

The present framework for NGO involvement and environment education is based on a background of visits to a large number of PAs over the last tow decades and recent visits to TRs with a more specific purpose of focusing atentionon these issues.

All in all project tiger faces a new set of serious problems. Project tiger saved the tiger from extinction in the nick of time but over 20 years it is clear that expanding human populations, a new way of life based on alien models, and the resultant effect on natural resources has created fresh problems that indicate danger for the tiger. Militancy and poaching only add fuel to the fire. This is a serious and critical moment in the history of tiger conservation.

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