Importance of Project Dolphin, Project Tiger & Project Elephant

On the occasion of India’s 74th Independence Day, Prime Minister Modi announced the launch of Project Dolphin in India.

He said that we have succeeded in Project Tiger and Project Elephant and now Project Dolphin will be launched to protect the river and sea dolphins.

This will conserve biodiversity as well as provide a means of livelihood to the people dependent on river-based activities.

As the Prime Minister has said that Project Tiger and Project Elephant have been successful in India and now Project dolphins will be started. Therefore, it would be appropriate to discuss Project Tiger and Project Elephant before discussing Project Dolphin.

What is Project Tiger?

Tiger is called the king of the jungle because he protects the ecosystem.

To maintain environmental balance, any country should have a green area equal to at least one-third of its size.

Tiger needs animals as food to survive. Animals prefer to live in dense forests where they have access to soil, trees, plants, shrubs, grasslands, ponds, rivers, etc.

A tiger needs to hunt an animal every five days for food. That is, he needs about 70 animals a year.

According to this, several hundred animals are needed for Tiger’s entire family.

A large forest area is needed to nurture so many animals.

In other words, it can be said that a large forest area is required for the survival of the tiger. A forest maintains the ecosystem and biodiversity.

In this way, the tiger is directly the protector of the ecosystem and biological diversity.

That is why the Project Tiger program was launched on 7 April 1973 for the conservation of tigers in India.

Initially, under this project, 9 sanctuaries were built but currently, there are about 50 tiger reserves in the whole country.

Jim Corbett National Park the world fame tiger reserve stands in first place in India having the highest number of tigers.

It is a matter of happiness that in the last few years the number of tigers in India has increased significantly.

The number of tigers in India which was 1400 in the year 2014 became 2967 up to 2019.

It is important to know that the total number of tigers in the whole of the world is around 3900, while about 3000 tigers live in India alone. Thus, 75% out of the total tigers worldwide live in India.

The increase in the number of tigers in India indicates that there is sufficient green area available in the country.

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Project Elephant:

A project Elephant was started in 1992 for the conservation of elephants along the lines of Project Tiger in India.

Under this project, about 101 elephant corridors have been set up across 16 states of the country to interlink the natural habitats of elephants.

The project elephant has remained significantly successful in achieving the following goals:

• The conservation of elephants.
• The conservation of their natural habitats.
• The reduction in the human-elephant conflict.

At present, there are 4,15,000 African elephants and 50,000 Asian elephants in the world.

It is noteworthy that, out of 50,000 Asian elephants 30,000 elephants live in India alone.

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Now we come to Project Dolphin:

What is Project Dolphin?

After the success of Project Tiger and Project Elephant in India, there are plans to launch Project Dolphin.

The Gangetic Dolphin has been given the status of a national aquatic animal in 2010 in India.

The dolphins that live in the freshwater of the Ganges river of India are called Gangetic dolphins.

It is a species of sea dolphin.

Gangetic dolphin is found in the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and its tributaries in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

It likes to live in fresh and deep water.

Earlier dolphins were found in abundance in the river Ganges but due to pollution and constant hunting in the river, their number is decreasing.

Recently, when all industries were closed due to the situation of lockdown in India, the Ganga river became free from pollution.

During that period, the dolphins surprisingly began to appear in greater numbers. It shows that dolphins and other aquatic living beings like to live in pollution-free water.

Now the Indian government is launching “Project Gangetic Dolphin” for the protection of dolphins. It is clear that this will focus on the conservation of rivers.

This will conserve aquatic biodiversity also.

Benefits of Project Dolphin:

The project dolphins will be helpful in achieving the following goals:

• Conservation of dolphins.
• Conservation of rivers.
• Promotion of fisheries.
• Promotion of industries dependant on rivers and the sea.
• It will promote the river-based livelihood options.
• It will promote tourism.

Conclusion:

As the tiger is needed for the conservation of the ecosystem on lands, in the same way, the dolphin is needed in the water.

Just as conservation of tiger and elephant means the development of the green area, similarly conservation of dolphins means continuous flow of pollution-free rivers, conservation of biological diversity of aquatic organisms, and development of river-based industries.

Now in India, the development of green areas and, the development of river areas will go on simultaneously.