The International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA), launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 9, 2023, has officially come into force from January 23, 2025, according to an official statement.
The IBCA is now a full-fledged treaty-based inter-governmental international organisation and international legal entity, the statement added.
The development comes even as five countries — Republic of Nicaragua, Kingdom of Eswatini, Republic of India, Federal Republic of Somalia, and Republic of Liberia — have ratified the Framework Agreement under Article VIII (1), formalising their membership in IBCA.
Twenty-seven countries, including India, have consented to join the IBCA.
The IBCA serves as a collaborative platform, fostering partnerships among big cat range and non-range countries, conservation organisations, and international stakeholders to reverse the decline of 7 major big cat populations — lion, tiger, leopard, cheetah, snow leopard, puma and jaguar — and restore their habitats
“With this milestone, #IBCA is poised to unite conservation efforts on a global scale, ensuring the long-term survival of these magnificent predators and securing our ecological future,” the statement said.
‘Big Cat’ is a term that is used in informal speech to apply to any large species of the family Felidae. Usually, it applies to the members of the genus Panthera. These include:
1. Tiger (Panthera tigris)
2. Lion (Panthera leo)
3. Jaguar (Panthera onca)
4. Leopard (Panthera pardus)
5. Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia)
All these cats can usually make vocalisations known as ‘roars’. The lion has the loudest roar, which can be heard 8-10 kilometres away. The snow leopard, at one time, was not included in this group. It was classified as Uncia uncia. Later, it was re-classified as part of Panthera.
Two other cats — Puma (Puma concolor) and Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) — are not part of Panthera. But they are usually included in most listings of ‘big cats’.
The Indian subcontinent has been historically home to the Bengal tiger, Asiatic lion, Indian leopard, Indian/Asiatic cheetah as well as Snow leopard. The cheetah was declared extinct in 1952. In 2022, the Government of India embarked on an ambitious programme to introduce African cheetahs to the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.