Protected areas in India

According to IUCN protected areas are those in which human occupation or at least the exploitation of resources is limited. Protected areas also include marine protected areas. Boundaries are decided by the countries government. Laws made by the government with the contributions of international organizations like the United Nations.

It can include some area of ocean, and Transboundary Protected Areas that overlap multiple countries which remove the borders inside the area for conservation and economic purposes. Does biosphere reserves come in protected areas? Actually yes part of biosphere reserves automatically includes in them. So, what can be a protected area? Which have some restriction on the human occupation? Example: National Parks, Community reserves, Marine protected areas, Conservation reserves, Wildlife sanctuaries.

Above table shows updated Protected areas data. Recently published by Wildlife Institute of India in May 2019. For more detail Download India State of Forest report by Forest Survey of India(Ministry of Environement).

Above data is provided by government ministries thus can be trusted. The Indian government categorized protected areas a bit differently according to the need than IUCN categorization. But the intent of lawmaking is the same that is to prevent the environment or particular communities. IUCN categorized these areas in 6 categories.

World Data

“The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the most comprehensive global database on terrestrial and marine protected areas. It is a joint project between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), managed by UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). ProtectedPlanet.net is the online interface for the WDPA. ProtectedPlanet.net lets you discover the protected areas of the world through exploring the maps and intuitive searching, feeding you information from the WDPA, photos from Panoramio and text descriptions from Wikipedia.”- IUCN

Where to find all world data of Protected Areas?

Protected Planet is a complete source of data about such areas. Supported by IUCN, World Commission on Protected Areas(WCPA). Protected Areas is a publicly available source to find world’s any protected area. They get data from various organizations, non-governmental agencies, governmental agencies, etc. Any person can access it directly to search world’s protected areas.