Protected Area network

Story hook

On the night of 30 December 2018, in the Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary of Maharashtra's Yavatmal district, a male tiger walked out of his territory and kept walking. Camera traps caught him in Telangana. Then in Andhra Pradesh. Then back into Maharashtra. By August 2019, the tiger — tagged T1-C1, christened "Walker" by forest guards — had covered more than 2,000 kilometres, crossing seven districts in three states, threading his way through farmland, highways, sugarcane fields, and tea estates. He spent days hiding in roadside ditches. He killed cattle in villages and went to sleep under standing crops. In each new territory he tested whether a tigress was already there; finding one, he was chased off; he kept walking.

T1-C1's journey is the longest documented tiger dispersal in India. It is also a parable for India's protected-area network. Tigers — and elephants, rhinos, leopards — do not respect park boundaries. They need corridors between sanctuaries, buffer zones around national parks, and tolerance from the people they walk past. India has built one of the world's most extensive protected-area systems — 106 national parks, 573 wildlife sanctuaries, 132 conservation reserves, 220 community reserves. But the parks are islands; the corridors connecting them matter just as much as the islands themselves.

This file maps the Indian PA network — the legal categories, the biosphere reserves, conservation reserves, tiger reserves, eco-sensitive zones, and how they fit together under the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972.

Why this matters for UPSC

The PA network is the single most tested topic in Environment GS-III. Every Prelims year has 1-2 questions on national parks, biosphere reserves, tiger reserves, or eco-sensitive zones. Mains includes analytical questions on PA effectiveness, corridor management, and community participation. Interview boards probe specific reserves and ongoing controversies. Very high weight overall.