India’s cabinet this week approved the establishment of the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA), first announced in 2023.

The alliance brings together almost 100 countries to work on the protection and conservation of seven major big cat species across the world by conserving the landscapes they thrive in and restricting poaching, especially on the Asian continent.

The IBCA, originally proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April last year, will focus on the conservation of the seven big cats, including tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar, and puma. It will be headquartered in India, which on Thursday approved budgetary support of 1.5 billion rupees ($18.1 million) for the next five years.

All of these species are either listed as vulnerable or endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“IBCA would have a multipronged approach in broad basing and establishing linkages manifold in several areas and help in knowledge sharing, capacity building, networking, advocacy, finance and resources support, research and technical support, education, and awareness,” said an Indian government statement.

“With big cats as mascots for sustainable development and livelihood security, India and the big cat range countries can usher in major efforts on environmental resilience and climate change mitigation, while paving a future where natural ecosystems continue to thrive, and gain centrality in economic and development policies.”

So far, 96 countries – all of who are home to at least one of the big cats – have signalled they will participate in the new organisation.

However, the alliance will also welcome countries and organisations who do not nest big cats but are interested in their conservation and are willing to contribute to the cause, according to the statement released by the cabinet.

The Indian government also plans to appoint brand ambassadors to provide impetus to the campaign.

“IBCA recognises the importance of integrating biodiversity policies with sustainable development goals (SDGs) to achieve holistic and inclusive conservation outcomes,” the statement added.

Among its key objectives will be mainstreaming biodiversity in sectoral policies and development planning processes, including in agriculture, forestry, tourism, and infrastructure development.

It will also promote sustainable land use practices, habitat restoration initiatives, and ecosystem-based approaches.

An interim head of the IBCA will be appointed by the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, until the alliance holds its first assembly meeting with member countries.

Further, the governance team will consist of an assembly of members and a standing committee, while the frameworks for multilateral and bilateral agreements will be drafted on the lines of the International Solar Alliance, also headquartered in India.

The alliance aims to establish networks to form a centralised repository of successful practices and personnel which is backed by financial resources and can help the conservation agenda “to arrest decline in big cat population and reverse the trend”, it added.

The Indian government financial support for the next five years is a one-time package, and the organisation is expected in time to find alternative funding sources.

“For augmented corpus, contributions from bilateral and multilateral agencies; other appropriate institutions and mobilising financial support from public sector organisations, national and international financial institutions, and donor agencies will further be explored,” the statement said.

India is spending significant amounts to protect its own tiger population, and is also one of four Asian nations in talks with the UNDP over a potential tiger bond, which could be partially monetised through the sale of biodiversity credits.

MAN VS WILD

The Indian government has previously assisted several countries, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Kenya, to rehabilitate and conserve big cats.

Various others, including Malaysia, Tanzania, Vietnam, Nepal, and Thailand had expressed interest in joining the alliance, when it was formally announced last year to commemorate Project Tiger, the Indian tiger conservation programme.

Project Tiger was launched by the government in 1973 in nine reserves of different states in the country spanning over an area of 14,000 square km.

The country currently accommodates more than 70% of the global tiger population.

However, in the process, the government has seemed to neglect other endangered species and forest dwelling human communities, according to an article published last year by The Third Pole.

Last year, New Delhi also made amendments to the forestry act diluting the provisions, which experts believed will bring huge loss to the country’s biodiversity.

Under the Forest Amendment Act 2023, the central government has redefined the term “forest”, removing legal protection for certain types.

“The central government has made a lot of exemptions to the law and the state governments will make sure to exploit those,” Debadityo Sinha, lead for climate and ecosystems at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, told Carbon Pulse at the time, referring to a state government’s decision to allow non-forestry activities within deemed forests.

The proposed amendment and weakening of forest laws will lead to a destruction of natural habitats of wild animals including wild cats, he claimed.

Meanwhile, India also released an estimate of its leopard population in the country on Thursday and found that while the number of leopards has risen inside forests and reserves areas, an equal number or even more has increased outside the wildlife reserves in most of the states of the country, signalling a potential rise in human-wildlife conflict.

By Nikita Pandey – nikita@carbon-pulse.com

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