MEE-TR 2026: How India Will Assess Management of All 58 Tiger Reserves

The Environment Ministry has launched the 6th Cycle of Management Effectiveness Evaluation of Tiger Reserves (MEE-TR 2026), covering all 58 tiger reserves in India, officials said Friday.

The inception workshop for the exercise was organised by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in New Delhi. The Technical Manual for MEE-TR 2026 was also released during the workshop.

The evaluation will examine tiger and prey conservation, habitat management, protection and wildlife crime, wildlife monitoring and health, fire and disaster management, human-wildlife coexistence, community engagement, tourism management, landscape connectivity, and management planning and resources.

A new feature of the sixth cycle is the introduction of Solid Waste Management as a separate evaluation criterion. It will cover waste generated at forest facilities, tourism activities and biomedical waste from wildlife rescue centres.

MEE-TR uses six elements -- Context, Planning, Inputs, Processes, Outputs and Outcomes -- under a framework adapted from the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. The 2026 cycle will place greater emphasis on field-based evidence, management outcomes, emerging threats and digital and spatial information.

Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said evaluation should reflect the specific ecological and sociological conditions of individual tiger reserves. He called for site-specific landscape management and adaptive conservation practices incorporating local socio-economic considerations.

Yadav also suggested involving local ecological and sociological experts and local youth in the evaluation exercise. He called for area-based assessment of human-wildlife conflict and measurable conservation outcomes, while stressing professionalism and objectivity in the process.

The assessment will be conducted by independent multidisciplinary evaluation teams. It will seek to identify management strengths, gaps and areas requiring improvement and provide a basis for prioritising management actions and resources.

MEE was initiated in India in 2006. Five cycles were completed in 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022, covering 28, 39, 43, 50 and 51 tiger reserves respectively. The sixth cycle builds on these assessments with a stronger focus on field evidence and emerging management issues and continuous improvement across reserves.