Hear The Drumbeats From India’s Forests — Our Wildlife Is Booming
India’s jungles are growing, while not swamping the nation’s road to business and enterprise. And India’s industry, on its part, has not been crossing the thick green line
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi fixed his gaze on an exceptionally rare boa constrictor lazily coiled around his arm during his visit to Vantara, the world’s largest animal rescue and rehabilitation centre, his government was ready with a larger message to the world on wildlife.
The prime minister visited Anant Ambani’s Vantara, which spans 3,000 acres and serves as a sanctuary for 1.5 lakh abused, injured, and endangered animals, a day after World Wildlife Day on March 3.
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It is a good time to look at what India, led by PM Modi, has done for the jungle. Let us briefly list a few.
• India is now the global leader in tiger conservation, with the big cat’s population rising to 3,682 as per the All India Tiger Estimation 2022, marking a steady increase from 2,226 in 2014. The population is growing at 6.1 per cent per annum.
• Project Cheetah reintroduced the animals to India in 2022. A female cheetah gave birth to cubs on Indian soil after 75 years, with one surviving cub reported to be six months old and showing normal growth as of September 2023. On January 3, 2024, three cubs were born to the Namibian cheetah Aasha at the Kuno National Park.
• India’s wild elephant population has increased from 26,786 in 2018 to 29,964 in 2022.
• The Asiatic Lion moved from being ‘critically endangered’ to ‘endangered’ in 2008, with its population under 300. Today, there are 674. The Gujarat government upped the lion budget to Rs 155.53 crore in 2023-24.
• The one-horned rhino population has surged 170 per cent from 1,500 in the late 80s to 4,014 now.
• On December 18, 2024, India reached a ground-breaking milestone by successfully satellite-tagging the first-ever Ganges River Dolphin (Platanista Gangetica) in Assam under Project Dolphin. India is home to 90 per cent of the species, and this project will close the knowledge gaps hindering conservation.
• Compared to 2021, India’s forest and tree cover has grown by 1,445 sq km. The country’s forest and tree cover is 8,27,357 sq km, which is 25.17 per cent of its geographical area.
• In Budget 2025-26, the ministry of environment, forests, and climate change has got Rs 3,412.82 crore, which is 9 per cent higher than the 2024-25’s revised estimate of Rs 3125.96 crore.
• For 2025-26, the Union government has allocated Rs 450 crore for the Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats under its centrally sponsored scheme. An extra Rs 290 crore has been kept aside for Project Tiger and Elephant, making it an 18 per cent jump from 2024-25.
These are just some of the highlights. Generational changes are underway in India’s wildlife scene, with geotagging, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and DNA sequencing coming into play in a big way.
Politically, it demolishes the narrative that the Congress has been trying to set against the Modi government that it sacrifices the environment, forests, and wildlife at the altar of business interests and crony capitalists.
In 2024, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, who was the environment and forest minister in the UPA government, had said the proposed amendment to Forest Conservation Act, 1980, was an example of diluting protection for India’s wildlife and natural resources. He said the amendment hollowed the Act from within.
“The intention is to hand over access to our forests to the prime minister’s corporate friends," Ramesh had said.
But the surging wildlife and forest figures tell a different story. India’s jungles are growing, while not swamping the nation’s road to business and enterprise. And India’s industry, on its part, has not been crossing the thick green line.
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