Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Sunday that India would host the first ever Global Big Cat Summit this year.
The International Big Cat Alliance, which was established in 2024, is a treaty-based intergovernmental international organisation with headquarters in India.
"This year, India is hosting the first ever Global Big Cat Summi, where heads of governments and ministers from 95 range countries will deliberate on collective strategies for conservation," Sitharaman said while presenting the Budget for financial year 2026-27.
What Is IBCA?
To commemorate 50 years of India's Project Tiger In April 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the IBCA for global conservation of seven big cats tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar and puma.
Earlier, during Global Tiger Day celebration in July, 2019, Modi had called for an alliance of global leaders to erase demand and firmly curb poaching and illegal wildlife trade. The Union cabinet approved the establishment of the IBCA on March 12, 2024.
The IBCA is a multi-country, multigency coalition of 95 countries with an interest in big cat conservation, conservation partners, scientific organisations engaged in big cat research, as well as business groups and corporates committed to supporting big cat conservation efforts, according to its website.
Primary Objective
The primary objective of the IBCA is to facilitate collaboration and synergy among stakeholders, consolidating successful conservation practices and expertise into a centralized repository. This unified approach, bolstered by financial support, aims to bolster the conservation agenda, halt the decline in big cat populations, and reverse current trends.
The IBCA seeks to bring together range countries and other stakeholders onto a common platform to champion the cause of big conservation on a global scale, it added.
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