The Centre on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to allow regulated, low-impact tourist activities in up to 20 per cent of the core/critical tiger habitat in the country as part of the exercise to promote tourism.

In the fresh guidelines formulated for states following the top court’s interim ban imposed on July 24 on all tourist activities in the core areas of areas of tiger reserves, the government also said that to protect the tiger population, no new tourism infrastructure should be created.

Two months after the Supreme Court banned tourism in core areas of tiger reserves after relying on the existing guidelines, the Centre Wednesday submitted revised guidelines, permitting up to 20 pe

New Delhi: Faced with the Supreme Court’s two-month-old interim ban on tourism in core areas of tiger reserves, the Union government’s expert body on tiger conservation told the apex court that pub

The Union government on Wednesday pleaded in the Supreme Court for a partial lifting of the ban on tourist activities in core areas of tiger reserve forests. It sought permission to have 20 per cent of the area under tourism.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), Ministry of Environment and Forests said this in its fresh Comprehensive Guidelines on Strategy, Tiger Conservation and Tourism in and around Tiger Reserves.

Practice found to encourage poaching, illegal trade

In April 2008 a government enforcement agency in Kerala seized two live barn owls and a sand boa from a gang and released the animals later at undisclosed locations. The officials told mediapersons that one owl would fetch Rs. 2 lakh in some neighbouring countries where they are killed for black magic rituals.

Even as several instances of poaching were reported recently, forest officials on Thursday announced that 65 tigers are inhabiting the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR).

The authorities have arrived at the figure after a tiger monitoring exercise was conducted in the reserve between April 1 and May 31, during which the movements of felines were monitored with the help 94 camera traps.
According to Veerendra Tiwari, TATR’s chief conservator of forests and field director, there were at least 65 tigers in the area, excluding 20 cubs, which is an encouraging sign.

The state forest department and the wildlife wing have done little to save endangered and threatened species in AP, according to conservationists.

New Delhi: Another panel has been set up by the ministry of environment and forests to decide eco-tourism guidelines in core areas and peripheral buffer zones of tiger reserves, and submit a report

Goa has five wildlife sanctuaries and a national park

The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has suggested inclusion of Goa as a part of the Tiger Reserve complex complimenting the sanctuaries in Maharashtra and Karnataka, which would help the coastal state in conserving wild cats. The Dehradun-based Institute, which submitted its report on the status of wildlife in Goa to the state forest department has established that tiger occupancy in Goa is about 322 square kilometres.

A forty-minute unique educational film The Truth About Tigers by world-renowned wildlife filmmaker Shekhar Dattatri talks about the tiger’s life from birth to death and illustrates how different hu