India has sought assistance of USD 30 million under the Global Tiger Initiative, said Keshav Varma, Program Director, Global Tiger Initiative, WBITI at The World Bank, on the sidelines of the first stock-taking meeting of tiger-bearing countries on the Global Tiger Recovery Programme held recently in New Delhi.
The workshop is expected to set the agenda for this year and negotiate and deliberate common parameters to assess conservation efforts, according to a report by The Times of India. India has refused to let bank funds be used for protection of and running tiger reserves in the country but Varma suggested that the funds were to be used for the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau and international collaborations. Speaking at the meet, Jayanthi Natarajan, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, emphasised that conservation in India had to be more inclusive, involving and protecting the rights of people living in vicinity of forests. "The 'people agenda' ranks prominently in our 'tiger agenda'. While we do not imagine any coexistence in the inviolate core areas, a viable inclusive agenda involving local people is fostered in the surrounding buffer," Natarajan said. Earlier, while the initiative was taking off, India pushed for country-specific solutions to conserve the tiger and won the debate on maintaining the issue as a 'sovereign one' - something that Rajesh Gopal, Member Secretary, National Tiger Conservation Authority, stated again at the stock-taking exercise.
Click here to see the original article>The workshop is expected to set the agenda for this year and negotiate and deliberate common parameters to assess conservation efforts, according to a report by The Times of India. India has refused to let bank funds be used for protection of and running tiger reserves in the country but Varma suggested that the funds were to be used for the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau and international collaborations. Speaking at the meet, Jayanthi Natarajan, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, emphasised that conservation in India had to be more inclusive, involving and protecting the rights of people living in vicinity of forests. "The 'people agenda' ranks prominently in our 'tiger agenda'. While we do not imagine any coexistence in the inviolate core areas, a viable inclusive agenda involving local people is fostered in the surrounding buffer," Natarajan said. Earlier, while the initiative was taking off, India pushed for country-specific solutions to conserve the tiger and won the debate on maintaining the issue as a 'sovereign one' - something that Rajesh Gopal, Member Secretary, National Tiger Conservation Authority, stated again at the stock-taking exercise.