Protected Areas and Wildlife — Quick Revision

A last-week revision sheet for protected areas and wildlife law. Most Prelims questions here hinge on who declares an area and under which law.

Protected-Area Categories

Category	Law and section	Declared by	Remember
Wildlife Sanctuary	WPA, Sec 18	State (Centre under Sec 38)	Grazing may be regulated or permitted
National Park	WPA, Sec 35	State (Centre under Sec 38)	No grazing; rights settled
Conservation Reserve	WPA, Sec 36A	State, after consulting communities	Government land; 2002
Community Reserve	WPA, Sec 36C	State	Community or private land; 2002
Tiger Reserve	WPA, Sec 38V	State, on NTCA recommendation	Core (critical tiger habitat) + buffer; 2006
Biosphere Reserve	Not under WPA	Central scheme; UNESCO MAB	Core, buffer, transition
Elephant Reserve	Not under WPA	Under Project Elephant	—
Eco-sensitive Zone	Environment (Protection) Act, 1986	Central Government	Up to 10 km (2011 guidelines)

WPA Amendments

Amendment	Change
1991	Protection of specified plants (Chapter IIIA)
2002	NBWL (chaired by PM); conservation and community reserves
2006	NTCA; statutory tiger reserves; Wildlife Crime Control Bureau
2022	Schedules reduced from six to four; CITES implementation; vermin schedule removed; higher penalties

Schedules (post-2022)

Schedule	Content
I	Animals — highest protection
II	Animals — lesser protection
III	Plants
IV	CITES-listed specimens

Bodies

Body	Chair / note
National Board for Wildlife	Prime Minister
NBWL Standing Committee	Union Environment Minister
State Board for Wildlife	Chief Minister
NTCA	Union Environment Minister
WCCB	Organised wildlife crime

Species Projects

Project	Year
Project Tiger	1973 (nine reserves)
Crocodile Conservation Project	1975
Project Elephant	1992
Project Snow Leopard	2009
Project Dolphin	Announced 2020
Project Cheetah	2022 (Kuno National Park)

IUCN Protected-Area Categories

Ia Strict Nature Reserve · Ib Wilderness Area · II National Park · III Natural Monument · IV Habitat/Species Management Area · V Protected Landscape/Seascape · VI Sustainable-use Protected Area

High-yield facts

First national park: Hailey National Park (1936), now Jim Corbett National Park.
First biosphere reserve: Nilgiri (1986); first Indian site in UNESCO’s network (2000).
National Heritage Animal: elephant (2010). National Aquatic Animal: Gangetic dolphin (2009).
Cheetah: extinct in India 1952; reintroduced at Kuno, Madhya Pradesh, September 2022.
All India Tiger Estimation 2022: mean estimate 3,682 (NTCA–WII, released 2023).
June 2022: Supreme Court directed a minimum 1 km ESZ around protected areas (later modified in 2023).

Traps

Biosphere reserves, elephant reserves and ESZs are not WPA protected-area categories.
NBWL is chaired by the PM, not the Environment Minister.
Conservation reserve = government land; community reserve = community/private land.
“Six schedules” is outdated after 2022.