World Wildlife Conservation Day : A Reminder That India Needs To Do Better

Hilary Clinton designated December 4 as World Wildlife Conservation Day in 2012. Twelve years later, India is ranked as one of the worst conservators in the world

Outlook Web Desk

Updated on: 4 December 2024 4:49 pm

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Cheetah Conservation Representational Image File Photo

December 4 is World Wildlife Conservation Day, as designated by then-US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in 2012. The honorary day is meant to raise awareness of conservation issues including poaching, overcommercialisation, and global wildlife tracking.

Twelve years later, despite efforts to decrease the number of endangered and threatened species and to lower rate of wildlife crime, human-led actions continue to cut into the planet’s biodiversity.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the world’s largest data source on the global extinction risk status of species (animal and plant and fungi), there are more than 41,000 species currently threatened with extinction— a total of 28 per cent of all assessed species. Specifically, 27 per cent of mammals are under threat, along with 13 per cent of birds, 41 per cent of amphibians, 21 per cent of reptiles.

Despite the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) currently running over 40 projects across India, India scored 45.5 (out of 100) in the Global Nature Conservation Index 2024, ranking the county at 176th out of 180 counties. This makes India one of the worst performing countries in terms of wildlife conservation alongside Iraq (178), Turkey (179), and Kiribati (180).

India is also the fourth-largest illegal wildlife trader in the world, with annual sales worth around 15 billion UK pounds.

This year also marks two years since the first African cheetahs arrived in India in a first-of-its-kind experiment. Eight cheetahs from Namibia and 12 cheetahs from South Africa were imported to India in two batches in 2022 and 2023. Their existence at the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh has been a mixed bag. With many having died, and some giving birth, KNP now hosts 12 Indian-born cubs (of the 17 born in India) and 12 adults (of the 20 brought from Namibia and South Africa).

In its August 15, 2022 issue We the People, Outlook had highlighted the stories of several Indians who are actively working towards better wildlife and environmental conservation. Ashutosh Bhardwaj had written about a resident of Basti district in Uttar Pradesh, Sitaram Das who had taken on the task of crocodile conservation. Sandipan Chatterjee had written about a club that is taking care of biodiversity by protecting the bees.