The government is implementing a three-year project “Sundarbans Tiger Conservation Project” with the objective to protect the “Royal Bengal Tiger” of the mangrove forest.
"Different programs including tiger conservation and research like tiger survey will begin soon under the project," Environment, Forests and Climate Change Minister Md Shahab Uddin formally said in his call for protecting the tiger habitat at the Sundarbans, while being virtually connected to a discussion from his official residence on Friday marking International Tiger Day 2022.
Environment Minister Shahab Uddin Dhaka TribuneUnder the project, the Environment, Forests and Climate Change Ministry will implement a tiger survey, counting the numbers of tiger hunting animals like dear and wild pigs and construction of fencing, made of nylon, surrounding 60 kilometers of the forest areas close to the inhabitants.
The tiger census and other wild live survey programs will be implemented through camera trapping which will take place for the third time in the mangrove forest, the minister said at the function arranged by the Department of Forests.
International Tiger Day is observed every year on July 29 in light of the declaration for reinforcing the conservation of tigers that emerged from a conference of the state heads of 13 tiger-rich countries held at Saint Petersburg in Russia in the year 2010.
The main theme of International Tiger Day is "Tiger is our pride so all are responsible to protect it" and the minister termed the theme as time-befitting.
According to the latest survey report held in the Sundarbans on 2017-2018, about 114 tigers remain in the Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans mangrove forests while it was nearly 96 in the Sundarbans of Indian part following a survey on 2020-2021.
Tigers are one of the endangered species and there are only 4,485 tigers remaining in the world, but tigers have been identified as an endangered species resulting in illegal poaching and deforestation all over the world, according to the List of critically endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Chaired by Chief Conservator of Forest (CCF) M Amir Hossain Chowdhury, the meeting was also attended, among others, by Deputy Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Habibun Nahar, Environment Forests and Climate Change Secretary Dr Farhina Ahmed and Additional Secretary Iqbal Abdullah Harun.
