IWN Report — Friday, 14 May 2026
India’s environment ministry has announced five thematic conservation events — one for each wild big cat species — across the country ahead of the International Big Cat Alliance Summit in New Delhi on 1 June 2026. The countdown to the Delhi Declaration has officially begun.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) announced the initiative on 13 May 2026 via a press release from the Press Information Bureau. The five events — each dedicated to a single species, each anchored in a landscape associated with that species’ conservation — are being organised in coordination with state forest departments, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), the National Biodiversity Authority, and the Indian Institute of Forest Management.
The five events
Each programme carries a designated theme that frames the conservation story India intends to tell at the summit.
Asiatic Lion — Gir, Gujarat. Theme: India’s Unique Conservation Success. The Asiatic lion is the rarest of India’s big cats and the only one found nowhere else on earth. The Gir event will showcase the recovery of the species under Project Lion, the expansion of lion distribution beyond the Gir Protected Area, scientific population monitoring and disease surveillance, and the role of the Maldhari pastoral community in coexistence with lions.
Tiger — Chandrapur, Maharashtra. Theme: Flagship of India’s Forest Conservation. India holds over 70% of the world’s wild tiger population. The Chandrapur event will highlight the country’s tiger recovery under Project Tiger and the NTCA, including camera trapping and AI-enabled monitoring through the M-STrIPES system, Special Tiger Protection Force deployment, and landscape-level corridor protection. The choice of Chandrapur is pointed: the district is home to the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve and has been one of the most acute sites of human-tiger conflict in the country. The event will specifically address Maharashtra’s efforts in the Vidarbha landscape to improve connectivity and reduce conflict.
Leopard — Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Theme: Coexistence in Human-Dominated Landscapes. Of India’s five wild big cats, leopards are the most widely distributed — and the most frequently in conflict with human settlements. The Bhubaneswar event will coincide with the International Day for Biological Diversity and will focus on rapid-response conflict mitigation, rescue and rehabilitation infrastructure, and public awareness around coexistence in fragmented landscapes.
Snow Leopard — Gangtok, Sikkim. Theme: Sentinel of the Himalaya. The snow leopard is a flagship species for the high-altitude ecosystems of the Himalayas and Trans-Himalayas — ecosystems under accelerating pressure from climate change and development. The Gangtok programme will focus on the Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India (SPAI), community-based conservation, sustainable livelihoods, and transboundary cooperation with Himalayan neighbours.
Cheetah — Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Theme: Restoring India’s Grassland Ecosystems. India’s Project Cheetah is the world’s first intercontinental translocation of a large carnivore. The Bhopal event will present the project’s progress — including reintroduction from Namibia and South Africa, prey base development in grassland ecosystems, and scientific monitoring through satellite collars — and will address longer-term habitat expansion planning.
The summit — and what it will produce
The five pre-summit events are the formal lead-up to the first IBCA Summit, to be held on 1 June 2026 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, followed by technical sessions on 1–2 June at Hotel Taj Palace. The summit will bring together Heads of State and Government from IBCA member countries, senior policymakers, conservation practitioners, and representatives from 95 big cat range countries — more than 400 participants in total.
The central outcome of the summit will be the adoption of the Delhi Declaration — described by MoEFCC as the first-ever global declaration on big cat conservation. The declaration is intended to articulate shared priorities, strengthen transboundary cooperation, and establish a landscape-based approach for conserving big cats and their habitats across the seven species covered by the International Big Cat Alliance: tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar, and puma.
Note: Specific dates for each of the five city events have not yet been announced by MoEFCC. IWN will report on each event as details are confirmed.