60% Increase in Overall Tiger Population, But Habitat & Biodiversity Loss Threatening Southeast Asian Big Cats

GS Paper III Environment & Ecology Geography

Context:

Although the status of wild tigers is good in South Asia and Russia, the picture in Southeast Asia is grim, posing challenges to the global tiger population recovery.

Countries have submitted tiger population numbers from 2010-2022 to the CITES.
There has been an overall increase in the tiger population by 60 percent, taking the number to 5,870.
However there was a decline in tiger population in the Tiger Range Countries (TRCs) of Southeast Asia. For example, countries like Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Lao-PDR, and Vietnam.

Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP)

The GTRP was endorsed in the St. Petersburg Declaration on Tiger Conservation at the International Tiger Forum (‘Tiger Summit’), held in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 21–24, 2010.
The GTRP is the result of a collaboration among the 13 Tiger Range Countries and the partners of the Global Tiger Initiative.

Global Tiger Recovery Program 2.0 (2023-34)

GTRP 2.0 has been firmed up by tiger range countries through the intergovernmental platform of the Global Tiger Forum along with collaborators like the WWF.
GTRP 2.0 emphasizes strengthening tiger governance, and enhancing resources and protection while addressing contemporary challenges like Human-Wildlife Conflict.

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora):

CITES was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of IUCN (The World Conservation Union).
It is an international agreement between governments.
Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species.

It is attributed to effective measures taken for habitat conservation and protection.
Nepal has tripled the tiger population.

Tiger Conservation Landscapes (TCL): It needs to be seen from the perspective of an ongoing human-environmental stress continuum.
- There are ongoing agro-pastoral as well as other human-induced modifications in several TCLs.
- Such stressors impact the availability of welfare factors for major wild herbivores and thereby affect the relative abundance of major carnivores, including the tiger.
- The report states that if steps on tiger stressors are not taken, a majority of the tiger population in Southeast Asia and small populations in parts of South Asia would be lost.
Robust policy framework: The grim situation demands a policy framework supported by political will and long-term availability of resources from the government.
The report emphasized the need for prey population augmentation in some patches.