IBCA and ADB Sign MoU at Tiger Landscapes Workshop in Delhi

Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav opened a two-day international workshop in New Delhi on 2 September 2026. Its theme is Tiger Landscapes: Conservation, Bioeconomy and Ecotourism as Pillars for Livelihood and Income Generation. The workshop runs on 2 and 3 September 2026.

Who is organising it

Three bodies are organising it together: the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

The agreement signed

IBCA and ADB signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the event. It covers landscape conservation, sustainable development, capacity building, knowledge exchange and nature-positive financing. ADB's Country Director for India, Mia Oka, noted that 2026 marks 40 years of the bank's partnership with India.

What the Minister said

Shri Yadav said the survival of tigers is tied to the health of forests, grasslands, rivers, prey species, wildlife corridors and local communities. He described tiger landscapes as natural capital that supplies water security, carbon sequestration, climate regulation, biodiversity conservation and livelihood support. His argument was that conservation must move past a focus on single species towards integrated landscape management.

His central line was that conservation with harmony and human-nature coexistence should be the foundation of ecological conservation. He linked land conservation to food quality, and pointed to desertification, falling soil moisture and declining soil quality as the wider setting. He asked participants to codify traditional knowledge and write that wisdom into policy, and said IBCA should lead in bringing the native wisdom of the Global South into conservation policy.

Who took part

Also on the dais were Secretary (EFCC) Tanmay Kumar, Director General (Forests) and Special Secretary Sushil Kumar Awasthi, and IBCA Director General S. P. Yadav. Experts and government representatives came from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal and Vietnam, alongside state forest departments and tiger reserves. IBCA itself is a global platform for cooperation on the conservation of the seven big cat species.