Sections 38L to 38XA: Tiger Reserves and the Tiger Authority

In one line

A core and a buffer, a plan the Centre approves, a bar on altering the reserve, and six conditions before anybody is moved.

In exam wording: section 38L of the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972 constitutes the National Tiger Conservation Authority; section 38O sets out its powers and functions, which include approving the Tiger Conservation Plan prepared by the State Government under section 38V(5), evaluating and assessing aspects of sustainable ecology and disallowing any ecologically unsustainable land use such as mining, industry and other projects within tiger reserves, laying down normative standards for tourism activities and guidelines for project tiger in the buffer and core areas, ensuring that tiger reserves and areas linking one protected area or tiger reserve with another are not diverted for ecologically unsustainable uses except in public interest and with the approval of the National Board for Wild Life and on the advice of the Authority, and issuing directions in writing to any person, officer or authority, provided that no such direction shall interfere with or affect the rights of local people particularly the Scheduled Tribes.

Continued: section 38V requires the State Government to notify an area as a tiger reserve on the recommendation of the Authority and to prepare a Tiger Conservation Plan, and defines a tiger reserve as including a core or critical tiger habitat and a buffer or peripheral area; section 38W forbids any alteration in the boundaries of a tiger reserve except on a recommendation of the Authority and the approval of the National Board, and forbids de-notification except in public interest with the approval of both; section 38X requires the State Government to establish a Tiger Conservation Foundation; and section 38XA provides that the Chapter is in addition to, and not in derogation of, the provisions relating to sanctuaries and National Parks included in a tiger reserve.

The core and the buffer

The Explanation to section 38V defines a tiger reserve as including two things.

(i) The core or critical tiger habitat. Areas of National Parks and sanctuaries where it has been established, on the basis of scientific and objective criteria, that they are required to be kept inviolate for the purposes of tiger conservation, without affecting the rights of the Scheduled Tribes or such other forest dwellers, and notified as such by the State Government in consultation with an Expert Committee constituted for the purpose.

(ii) The buffer or peripheral area. The area peripheral to the critical tiger habitat, where a lesser degree of habitat protection is required to ensure the integrity of the critical habitat with adequate dispersal for tiger species, aiming at promoting co-existence between wildlife and human activity with due recognition of the livelihood, developmental, social and cultural rights of the local people, the limits determined on scientific and objective criteria in consultation with the concerned Gram Sabha and an Expert Committee.