Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change has released Management Effectiveness Evaluation (MEE) of 146 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the country.

Map the protected areas mentioned in the newscard in your Atlas.

MEE Survey

• MEE is a very important document that provides valuable guidance on various aspects of wildlife and protected area expand MEE of Marine Protected Areas.
• In order to assess the efficacy of Protected Areas, evaluation of management effectiveness was required.
• MEE has emerged as a key tool for PA managers and is increasingly being used by governments and international bodies to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the protected area management systems.
• The results of the present assessment are encouraging with an overall mean MEE score of 62.01% which is higher than the global mean of 56%.
• With this round of evaluation, MoEFCC successfully completed one full cycle of evaluating all terrestrial National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries of the country from 2006 to 2019.

India has systematically designated its Protected Areas in four legal categories — National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries, Conservation Reserves and Community Reserves under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

Areas surveyed

• Under the WP 1972 Act, India has 903 formally designated Protected Areas with total coverage of 1,65,012.6 square km.
• Among these are 101 National Parks, 553 Wildlife Sanctuaries, 86 Conservation Reserves and 163 Community Reserves.
• For the survey, 146 National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries across 29 states and Union territories were evaluated.

Highlights of the MEE

• Tirthan Wildlife Sanctuary and Great Himalayan National Park in Himachal Pradesh have performed the best among the surveyed protected areas.
• The Turtle Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh was the worst performer in the survey.

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