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

• 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.

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.