Union Budget: Experts say main focus should be on wildlife conservation, not summits

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget on February 1, announced that India is hosting the first-ever Global Big Cat Summit, where heads of governments and Ministers from 95 range countries will deliberate on collective strategies for conservation.

How will this decision to host the summit impact the State, which, apart from being home to the second-largest tiger population in the country, has also seen many recent instances of man-animal conflicts and resultant casualties on both sides?

Wildlife experts The Hindu spoke to were not enthusiastic about such summits and said the main focus should be on wildlife conservation.

“I am very skeptical about these international summits and heads of states visiting them. We have had a series of them in the past, with Russian President Vladimir Putin heading one in Russia in 2010. I think what matters is what work we do and whether we are doing good science. I think these celebratory events are far too many and outweigh the actual achievements of what we are doing on ground,” said K. Ullas Karanth, an expert in wildlife conservation and tiger research.

He added that given the resource constraints we have and with a lot of things to do, money should be spent on them instead of such summits.

Wildlife biologist and conservationist Sanjay Gubbi said that the focus should be on conservation and ensuring that instances of human-animal conflict are minimised.

“It (Global Big Cat Summit) is good for soft diplomacy but the main focus should be on developing strategies to minimise human-animal conflict and protect wildlife,” he said.

In the Budget, Ms. Sitharaman also spoke about the International Big Cat Alliance in 2024 launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2024, the Union Cabinet approved its establishment, with its headquarters in India. It received a one-time budgetary support of ₹150 crore for a period of five years from 2023-24 to 2027-28.