Yadav Opens WWF Global Conservation Conference in Jaipur, Urges Community-Led Action

Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav inaugurated the World Wide Fund for Nature's Global Conservation Conference in Jaipur on Wednesday, addressing delegates drawn from more than 100 countries.

The inauguration was attended by Additional Director General (Wildlife) at the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ramesh Pandey; Head of Forest Force and Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Government of Rajasthan, Arijit Banerjee; Chief Conservation Officer at WWF-International Daudi Samba; and CEO of WWF-India Ravi Singh.

In his address, Yadav pressed for coordinated international action on conservation and coexistence, urging participants to reconnect as a community, draw confidence from existing progress and build a shared sense of hope and direction. He framed the agenda around the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the field of wildlife conservation.

Citing domestic gains over the past decade, the Minister said the number of protected areas in India has risen from roughly 750 to more than 1,000. Tiger reserves have grown from 47 to 58 and elephant reserves from 30 to 33 over the same period, while Ramsar sites have increased from 24 to 101. He also pointed to the reintroduction of cheetahs in India as an example of the country's conservation efforts.

Yadav described India's approach to species conservation as both constitutional and cultural, noting that the country's formal legal framework predates modern protected-area law and rests on a longer-standing ethos. He said the Constitution makes protecting wildlife both a directive for the State and a duty for citizens. India is a party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the Convention on Migratory Species, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Ramsar Convention, he added, and the recovery of tigers, elephants, rhinos and Asiatic lions demonstrates what sustained political will can achieve.

The Minister credited scientific research and monitoring for several conservation successes. He said pan-India population estimations for species including the tiger, elephant, dolphin, lion and snow leopard have informed habitat improvement, the securing of corridors and a landscape-level approach to large mammals. He also cited the conservation breeding of the Great Indian Bustard in Rajasthan and community-led protection of sacred groves known as Oran, which he linked to land degradation neutrality.

Yadav called for grasslands to be conserved alongside woodlands and wetlands, outlined India's approach to grassland-based mega herbivores and referred to ongoing programmes for the one-horned rhinoceros and the wild water buffalo. He closed by asking conservationists to come together not only to reflect but to move forward, learn from what works and translate it into action.