IBCA Headquarters Opens at 55 Lodhi Estate, New Delhi

Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav inaugurated the new office premises of the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) at 55 Lodhi Estate, New Delhi. The address is now the headquarters of the Alliance. IBCA Director General Dr S. P. Yadav welcomed the Minister and the other guests and spoke briefly about the organisation, its activities and its programmes.

What the IBCA is

The International Big Cat Alliance is a treaty-based inter-governmental international organisation with its headquarters in India. It was created for the conservation of the world's seven big cats, namely the lion, the tiger, the leopard, the snow leopard, the cheetah, the jaguar and the puma. The Government of India has pledged an initial contribution of Rs 150 crore for five years, covering the period from 2023-24 to 2027-28.

Membership

• 29 countries, India among them, have joined the Alliance as members
• Five countries have chosen to be observers
• Eleven more countries have agreed to become members

Work in two and a half years

The Alliance has been in existence for about two and a half years, and the Ministry listed these milestones:

• Two capacity-building programmes for foreign participants under the ITEC programme sponsored by the Ministry of External Affairs
• The PRIME cat health programme for veterinary doctors drawn from twenty countries
• Participation in international forums such as the CITES Conference of the Parties, the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties and the CITES Standing Committee meeting
• Outreach through international webinars and global photography competitions

Who attended

The ceremony was attended by the Union Minister of External Affairs and by the Director General (Forest) and Special Secretary in the Ministry, Santosh Tewari, along with senior ministry officers. Heads of other India-hosted or India-led international bodies were present as well, including the Directors General of the Global Biofuels Alliance, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and the International Solar Alliance. Representatives of international and United Nations organisations working in India also attended, among them the UN, UNDP, the World Bank, UNICEF, the Asian Development Bank, WWF, IUCN, UNEP, FAO and UNDSS.

Why it matters for exams

India now hosts three major international bodies in the climate and conservation space, and the Big Cat Alliance is the newest of them. Candidates should fix in memory that the headquarters is in New Delhi, that seven big cats are covered, that the first Indian contribution is Rs 150 crore for five years and that the Alliance rests on a treaty rather than on a simple declaration.