India will host a Global Big Cats Summit in New Delhi in 2026, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said on Monday. Speaking at the High-Level Ministerial Segment on the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) at the UN climate conference CoP30 in Belem, Brazil, he urged renewed global cooperation to protect big cat species and their habitats as part of broader climate and biodiversity action.
The Minister thanked Brazil for hosting the event and highlighted the timeliness of the theme, ‘Protecting Big Cats, Protecting Climate and Biodiversity.’ Yadav said ecological challenges were deeply interconnected and stressed the role of big cats as apex predators and indicators of ecosystem health. “Where big cats thrive, forests are healthier, grasslands regenerate, water systems function, and carbon is stored efficiently in living landscapes,” he said, warning that declining predator populations weaken climate resilience and erode natural carbon sinks.
Yadav stressed that big cat landscapes must be treated as nature-based climate solutions and urged countries to place such measures at the heart of future climate commitments. “What we often call wildlife conservation is, in fact, climate action in its most natural form,” he said. He pointed to India’s recent conservation gains, including doubling its tiger population ahead of schedule and steady growth in Asiatic lion numbers, supported by expanded protected areas, strengthened wildlife corridors, and comprehensive national wildlife databases.
Yadav said the IBCA, a vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi rooted in the principle of ‘One Earth, One World, One Future,’ now has 17 member countries, with more than 30 others expressing interest. Calling for global solidarity, he said, “We must collaborate, not compete. We must find strength not in isolation, but in solidarity.”
The Minister added that protecting big cats is essential to safeguarding the planet’s ecological future.
