• The government of India and the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) signed the Headquarters Agreement in New Delhi on April 17. 

• The agreement provides for India to be the host for the IBCA headquarters and Secretariat. 

• It entails necessary provisions to enable IBCA to meet its intended objectives and also for efficient discharge of its official functions. 

• The text pertains to visas, privileges and immunities to be extended to the IBCA Secretariat and personnel, premises, entry into force, supplementary agreements, and some general provisions.

What is IBCA?

• The IBCA was launched by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on April 9, 2023, during the event ‘Commemorating 50 years of Project Tiger’. 

• The Union Cabinet, in its meeting held on February 29, 2024, approved the establishment of IBCA with headquarters in India. 

• It was launched with the aim of conservation of seven big cats — tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar and puma — with membership of all UN countries/the range countries harbouring the said species and non-range countries where historically these species are not found but interested to support big cat conservation.

• The IBCA was established by the government of India, through the nodal organisation National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

• The IBCA and its Secretariat became a full-fledged treaty based inter-governmental international organisation and international legal entity with effect from January 23, 2025.

• As of now, 27 countries, including India, have consented to join IBCA and several international/national organisations working in the field of wildlife conservation have also partnered with IBCA.

• The primary objective of IBCA is to facilitate collaboration and synergy among stakeholders, consolidating successful conservation practices and expertise to achieve a common goal of conservation of big cats at global level. 

• This unified approach, bolstered by financial support, aims to bolster the conservation agenda, halt the decline in big cat populations, and reverse current trends.

• IBCA envisages synergy through a collaborative platform for increased dissemination of gold standard big cat conservation practices, provides access to a central common repository of technical know-how and corpus of funds, strengthens the existing species-specific intergovernmental platforms, networks and transnational initiatives on conservation and protection and assists securing our ecological future and mitigate adverse effects of climate change.

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