Environment & Ecology Quiz: Tiger Reserves of India: State-wise List

The correct answer is B, 1973. Project Tiger began on 1 April 1973 as a centrally sponsored scheme with nine reserves, after the tiger replaced the lion as the national animal and a census showed a steep fall in numbers. Option A is wrong because 1972 is the year of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, the law under which reserves and protected areas are notified; the Act came first and the scheme followed. Option C is wrong because 1980 is the year of the Forest (Conservation) Act, which restricts the diversion of forest land. Option D is wrong because 1992 is the year Project Elephant was launched, and examiners frequently pair the two schemes to see whether a candidate can separate them. Keep the chain in mind: Act of 1972, Project Tiger 1973, Project Elephant 1992, NTCA 2006.

The correct answer is B, the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006. Acting on the report of the Tiger Task Force appointed after the loss of the tigers of Sariska, Parliament amended the Act of 1972 in 2006 to insert Chapter IV-B, which created the National Tiger Conservation Authority and also the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau. Option A is wrong because the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 is the umbrella environmental law passed after the Bhopal gas tragedy and sets up no tiger authority. Option C is wrong because the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 created the National Biodiversity Authority at Chennai and the biodiversity management committees. Option D is wrong because the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 regulates the use of forest land for non-forest purposes. The NTCA is chaired by the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

The correct answer is B, Jim Corbett National Park. It was notified in 1936 as Hailey National Park, the first national park in India, was later renamed after the hunter turned conservationist Jim Corbett, and was among the nine reserves with which Project Tiger started in 1973. Option A is wrong because Kanha in Madhya Pradesh, though one of the first nine reserves and the home of the hard-ground barasingha, was notified as a national park in 1955. Option C is wrong because Bandipur in Karnataka was also among the first nine but is younger as a park. Option D is wrong because Kaziranga in Assam, famous for the one-horned rhinoceros, became a tiger reserve only in 2006, long after Project Tiger began. The safe pairing to memorise is Corbett with 1936 and with Uttarakhand.

The correct answer is B, Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve. Spread across the Nallamala hills in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana along the Krishna river, it is the largest tiger reserve in the country by area, and its division between two States after 2014 is itself a question. Option A is wrong because the Sundarbans in West Bengal, though unique as the only mangrove tiger habitat, is far smaller. Option C is wrong because Melghat in the Satpura ranges of Maharashtra, one of the first nine reserves, is large but not the largest. Option D is wrong because Namdapha in Arunachal Pradesh, notable for being home to four big cats, is also smaller. The companion fact is the smallest reserve, Bor in the Wardha district of Maharashtra. Remember also that this reserve lies in the Nallamala hills along the Krishna river and that the Srisailam dam divides it, a detail papers use to disguise the name.

The correct answer is C, Maharashtra. Bor Tiger Reserve lies in the Wardha district of Maharashtra, near Nagpur, and is the smallest tiger reserve in the country; it is part of the central Indian landscape that also holds Tadoba-Andhari, Pench, Melghat and Navegaon-Nagzira. Option A is wrong because Madhya Pradesh has Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Panna, Satpura, Pench and Sanjay-Dubri, but not Bor. Option B is wrong because Chhattisgarh has Indravati, Udanti-Sitanadi and Achanakmar. Option D is wrong because Odisha has Simlipal and Satkosia. A trap worth noting is Pench, which is a tiger reserve in both Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, so a question naming only Pench is incomplete unless the state is given. Bor was first a wildlife sanctuary and was raised to the status of a tiger reserve later, which is why older lists of reserves do not carry its name at all, and candidates who learnt only the older list miss this question.

The correct answer is B, West Bengal. Buxa Tiger Reserve lies in the Alipurduar district of north Bengal in the Dooars, against the Bhutan border, and was notified in 1983. It forms a corridor between the forests of north Bengal and Manas in Assam, which is why the movement and release of tigers there is followed closely. Option A is wrong because Assam has Manas, Kaziranga, Nameri and Orang. Option C is wrong because Sikkim has no tiger reserve; its famous protected area is the Khangchendzonga National Park, a World Heritage Site. Option D is wrong because Bihar's tiger reserve is Valmiki, in the West Champaran district on the Nepal border. West Bengal's other tiger reserve is the Sundarbans, the only mangrove tiger habitat in the world. The reserve takes its name from the Buxa fort inside it, and the Jayanti and Raidak rivers flow through its forests, details that sometimes appear in state-level papers.

The correct answer is B, Sariska. The Alwar district reserve in Rajasthan was found in 2004 and 2005 to have no tigers left, the result of poaching and weak protection. The Tiger Task Force appointed in 2005 examined the failure, and its report led to the statutory National Tiger Conservation Authority in 2006 and to the first relocation of tigers, from Ranthambore to Sariska from 2008. Option A is wrong, though it is the closest distractor: Panna in Madhya Pradesh lost its tigers a few years later and was repopulated in the same way, so the two are often interchanged. Option C is wrong because Palamau, one of the original nine reserves, declined but was not the trigger for the Task Force. Option D is wrong because Dampa in Mizoram was not involved in this episode.

The correct answer is A, 29 July. Global Tiger Day, also called International Tiger Day, was adopted at the St Petersburg tiger summit of 2010, where the thirteen tiger range countries agreed on the goal of doubling wild tiger numbers. Option B is wrong because 5 June is World Environment Day, observed since 1973 after the Stockholm Conference of 1972. Option C is wrong because 3 March is World Wildlife Day, marking the signing of CITES in 1973. Option D is wrong because 22 May is the International Day for Biological Diversity, which recalls the adoption of the text of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992. Days are a favourite one-mark question, so learn these four together with 29 July for the tiger and 12 August for the elephant.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. Periyar Tiger Reserve lies in the Idukki and Pathanamthitta districts of Kerala, around the Periyar reservoir created by the Mullaperiyar dam, and Kerala's other tiger reserve is Parambikulam. Option A is wrong because Karnataka's reserves are Bandipur, Nagarhole, Bhadra, Kali and Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple. Option C is wrong because Tamil Nadu has Kalakad-Mundanthurai, Mudumalai, Anamalai and Sathyamangalam; Mudumalai adjoins Bandipur across the state border, which is the usual trap in Western Ghats questions. Option D is wrong because Andhra Pradesh shares Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam with Telangana. The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve stitches several of these together, which is why candidates confuse the states of neighbouring reserves. Periyar is also remembered for its eco-development programme, in which former poachers were employed as guides, a model question papers describe as community participation in conservation. Keep the reservoir and the state together in memory.

The correct answer is A, the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. Section 38V of that Act, inserted in 2006, requires the State government to notify a tiger reserve on the recommendation of the National Tiger Conservation Authority, with a core or critical tiger habitat to be kept inviolate and a buffer area in which coexistence is allowed, and to prepare a Tiger Conservation Plan. Option B is wrong because the Indian Forest Act, 1927 deals with reserved, protected and village forests and the levy of duty on timber. Option C is wrong because the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 is the general enabling law under which eco-sensitive zones and impact assessment rules are issued. Option D is wrong because the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 governs access to biological resources and benefit sharing, not tiger habitat.

The correct answer is B, Manas. Manas in Assam, a World Heritage Site on the Bhutan border, was one of the nine reserves notified when Project Tiger began in 1973, along with Corbett, Kanha, Ranthambore, Bandipur, Melghat, Simlipal, Palamau and the Sundarbans. Option A is wrong because Tadoba-Andhari in Maharashtra was added later, although Tadoba had been a national park since 1955. Option C is wrong because Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh is a recent reserve and is better remembered as the winner of the first international award for doubling its tiger numbers. Option D is wrong because Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh, on the Nepal border, also came after the first list. The quickest way to hold the nine in memory is one reserve for each of the nine States as they then were.