Why is India getting another tiger reserve?

• Madhav National Park in Madhya Pradesh, India, was declared as the country’s 58th tiger reserve by Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on March 9, 2023.
• The reserve is the ninth in the State, the highest among the States.
• The decline in tigers’ numbers in India began in the early 20th century due to hunting, poaching, and colonial exploitation of forests for timber.
• The Indian Board for Wild Life recommended a total ban on the export of all wild cat skins, including tigers, in 1969.
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature included the tiger in its “Red Data Book” as an endangered species and adopted a resolution calling for a ban on the killing of tigers.
• The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) replaced the Project Tiger in 2006, making it mandatory for every tiger reserve to be managed according to a site-specific management plan.
• The NTCA guidelines aimed to create source populations within tiger reserves with corridor links between sources and to sink habitats.
• The reserve has grown to seven tigers, with the population growing to seven since 2023.
• The reserve is connected to the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan and Kuno National Park, which now has a captive cheetah population.
• As of the 2023 tiger census, India is estimated to have 3,682 tigers, with about 30% of them considered to be living outside tiger reserves.