India’s Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, opened the World Wide Fund for Nature Global Conservation Conference in Jaipur on 21 September 2026. The event brought together conservation representatives from over 100 countries to discuss wildlife protection and community involvement in conservation efforts.
What India has achieved in conservation
The Minister highlighted several measures of conservation progress over the past decade:
- Protected areas in India have increased from around 750 to more than 1000
- Tiger reserves have grown from 47 to 58
- Elephant reserves have risen from 30 to 33
- Ramsar wetland sites have expanded from 24 to 101
- Cheetahs have been successfully reintroduced into the country
The Minister also pointed to India’s legal and cultural foundation for conservation. He noted that wildlife protection is both a constitutional responsibility for the State and a duty for citizens, reflecting India’s philosophical approach to nature that extends beyond modern conservation law. India is party to international agreements including CITES (on trade in endangered species), CMS (on migratory species), CBD (on biological diversity), and the Ramsar Convention on wetlands.
Within India, population monitoring programmes for tigers, elephants, dolphins, lions and snow leopards have guided habitat improvement and the creation of wildlife corridors. The Minister also described conservation breeding of the Great India Bustard in Rajasthan and community-led protection of sacred groves known as Oran, which assist in reversing land degradation. Current conservation programmes focus on one-horned rhinoceros and wild water buffalo.
What this means for you
India’s expanding network of protected areas and reserves may affect land use and development in certain regions. If you live near or work in conservation-dependent ecosystems, or if your livelihood depends on grasslands or wetlands, government conservation priorities will shape what activities are permitted. The emphasis on community-led conservation suggests that local participation in protection efforts may become more central to how wildlife areas are managed going forward.