Project Tiger is a wildlife conservation movement initiated in India to protect the endangered tiger. The project was initiated in 1973 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of India. As of March 2024, there are 55 protected areas that have been designated as tiger reserves under the project. As of 2023, there were 3,682 wild tigers in India, which is almost 75% of the world's wild tiger population.
The Bengal tiger is a population of the Panthera tigris tigris subspecies and the nominate tiger subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna.
Jim Corbett National Park is a national park in India located in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand state. The first national park in India, it was established in 1936 during the British Raj and named Hailey National Park after William Malcolm Hailey, a governor of the United Provinces in which it was then located. In 1956, nearly a decade after India's independence, it was renamed Corbett National Park after the hunter and naturalist Jim Corbett, who had played a leading role in its establishment and had died the year before. The park was the first to come under the Project Tiger initiative.
Kanha Tiger Reserve, also known as Kanha–Kisli National Park, is one of the tiger reserves of India and the largest national park of the state of Madhya Pradesh. The present-day Kanha area is divided into two protected areas, Hallon and Banjar, of 250 and 300 km2, respectively. Kanha National Park was created on 1 June 1955 and was designated tiger reserve in 1973. Today, it encompasses an area of 940 km2 (360 sq mi) in the two districts Mandla and Balaghat.
Anaimalai Tiger Reserve, earlier known as Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park and as Anaimalai Wildlife Sanctuary, is a protected area in the Anaimalai Hills of Pollachi and Valparai taluks of Coimbatore District and Udumalaipettai taluk in Tiruppur District, Tamil Nadu, India. The Tamil Nadu Environment and Forests Department by a notification dated 27 June 2007, declared an extent of 958.59 km2 that encompassed the erstwhile IGWLS&NP or Anaimalai Wildlife Sanctuary, as Anaimalai Tiger Reserve under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. According to the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Reserve presently includes a core area of 958.59 km2 and buffer/peripheral area of 521.28 km2 forming a total area of 1479.87 km2.
There are four categories of protected areas in India, constituted under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Tiger reserves consist of areas under national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. There are 53 tiger reserves in India. As of January 2023, the protected areas of India cover 173,629.52 square kilometres (67,038.73 sq mi), roughly 5.28% of the total geographical area of the country.
Simlipal National Park is a national park and tiger reserve in the Mayurbhanj district in the Indian state of Odisha covering 2,750 km2 (1,060 sq mi). It is part of the Mayurbhanj Elephant Reserve, which includes three protected areas, Similipal Tiger Reserve, Hadgarh Wildlife Sanctuary with 191.06 km2 (73.77 sq mi) and Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary with 272.75 km2 (105.31 sq mi). Simlipal National Park derives its name from the abundance of red silk cotton trees growing in the area.
Panna National Park is an Indian national park in Panna and Chhatarpur Districts of Madhya Pradesh with an area of 542.67 km2 (209.53 sq mi). It was declared in 1994 as the twenty second Tiger reserve of India and the fifth in Madhya Pradesh. Panna National Park was given the Award of Excellence in 2007 as the best maintained national park of India by the Ministry of Tourism of India. Although the reserve went through an ordeal losing almost all of its tigers in 2009 to poaching, a subsequent recovery program touted as one of the most successful big cat population restorations, has resulted in a growth of up to 80 tigers within the park.
Chandoli National Park is a national park established in Sangli district on May 2004. Earlier it was a Wildlife Sanctuary declared in 1985. Chandoli Park is notable as the southern portion of the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve, with Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary forming the northern part of the reserve
Tiger conservation attempts to prevent tigers from becoming extinct and preserving its natural habitat. This is one of the main objectives of the international animal conservation community. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has played a crucial role in improving international efforts for tiger conservation.
The Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve is a wildlife sanctuary in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra state in India. It is Maharashtra's oldest and largest national park. Created in 1955, the reserve includes the Tadoba National Park and the Andhari Wildlife Sanctuary. The reserve consists of 577.96 square kilometres (223.15 sq mi) of reserved forest and 32.51 square kilometres (12.55 sq mi) of protected forest.
The Dudhwa Tiger Reserve is a protected area in Uttar Pradesh that stretches mainly across the Lakhimpur Kheri and Bahraich districts and comprises the Dudhwa National Park, Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary. It covers an area of 1,284.3 km2 (495.9 sq mi). Three large forested areas are extant within the reserve, although most of the surrounding landscape is agricultural. It shares the north-eastern boundary with Nepal, which is defined to a large extent by the Mohana River. It ranges in altitude from 110 to 185 m, and several streams flow through the reserve from the northwest across the alluvial plain that encompasses the reserve.
Pilibhit Tiger Reserve is located in Pilibhit district of Uttar Pradesh and was notified as a tiger reserve in 2014. It forms part of the Terai Arc Landscape in the upper Gangetic Plain along the India-Nepal border. The habitat is characterized by sal forests, tall grasslands and swamp maintained by periodic flooding from rivers. The Sharda Sagar Dam extending up to a length of 22 km (14 mi) is on the boundary of the reserve.
Sahyadri Tiger Reserve is a reserve in the state of Maharashtra, created by the Indian government in 2008. Located in the Sahyadri Ranges of the Western Ghats of Maharashtra, it is part of the ecoregions of North Western Ghats moist deciduous forests and North Western Ghats montane rain forests. These ranges form a common boundary between Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa, and constitute rich evergreen, semi-evergreen and moist deciduous forests. The area is spread over the four districts of Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Ratnagiri.
Parsa National Park is a national park in the Terai of south-central Nepal covering an area of 627.39 km2 (242.24 sq mi) in the Parsa, Makwanpur and Bara Districts and ranging in elevation from 435 to 950 m in the Sivalik Hills. It was established as a wildlife reserve in 1984 and received national park status in 2017. It is surrounded by a buffer zone since 2005 with an area of 285.3 km2 (110.2 sq mi). In 2015, the protected area was further extended by 49 sq mi (128 km2).
Shuklaphanta National Park is a national park in the Terai of the Far-Western Region, Nepal, covering 305 km2 (118 sq mi) of open grasslands, forests, riverbeds and wetlands at an elevation of 174 to 1,386 m. It is bounded by the Mahakali river in the west and south. A small part extends north of the Mahendra Highway to create a wildlife corridor for seasonal migration of wildlife into the Sivalik Hills. It was gazetted in 1976 as Royal Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve and was enlarged to its present size in the late 1980s. A buffer zone of 243.5 km2 (94.0 sq mi) was added in 2004. It receives a mean annual rainfall of 1,579 mm (62.2 in) and harbours 700 floral, 456 bird, 56 reptile and 15 amphibian species.
Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve is a protected area and tiger reserve located along the area straddling both the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats in the Erode district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The Sathyamangalam Forest Division is part of the Bramhagiri-Nilgiris-Eastern Ghats Elephant Reserve notified in 2003. In 2008, part of the Sathyamangalam Forest Division was declared a wildlife sanctuary, which was further enlarged in 2011 to cover a forest area of 1,411.6 km2 (545.0 sq mi). It is the largest wildlife sanctuary in Tamil Nadu. In 2013, an area of 1,408.6 km2 (543.9 sq mi) of the erstwhile sanctuary was notified as a tiger reserve and it was the fourth tiger reserve established in the state as a part of Project Tiger.
Sigur Plateau is a plateau in the north and east of Nilgiri District in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu, South India. It covers the 778.8 square kilometres (300.7 sq mi) portion of the Moyar River drainage basin on the northern slopes of the Nilgiri Hills, south of the Moyar River.
Bor Tiger Reserve is a wildlife sanctuary which was declared as a tiger reserve in July 2014. It is located near Hingani in Wardha District in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is a home to a variety of wild animals. The reserve covers an area of 138.12 km2 (53.33 sq mi). which includes the drainage basin of the Bor Dam.
Maharashtra provides legal protection to its tiger population through six dedicated tiger reserves under the precincts of the National Tiger Conservation Authority. under the initiative Project Tiger. These reserves cumulatively cover an estimated area of 9,113 km2 which is about 3% of the total state area.
