‘New Delhi Declaration’ in the works: India set to lead world’s first global pact on seven big cats at landmark June summit
A landmark moment in the history of global wildlife conservation is taking shape in New Delhi, as a proposed international agreement known as the ‘New Delhi Declaration’ is being finalised ahead of a historic global big cat summit scheduled for June 1, 2026. If adopted by participating nations, the declaration will become the first-ever international agreement devoted exclusively to the conservation of seven big cat species — the tiger, lion, leopard, cheetah, snow leopard, puma, and jaguar — setting a new benchmark for multilateral cooperation in biodiversity protection.
The initiative is being spearheaded by the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA), headquartered in New Delhi, in close coordination with India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The summit itself is expected to bring together heads of state, government ministers, conservation scientists, multilateral development banks, corporate stakeholders, academic researchers, and local community representatives from across Asia, Africa, and the Americas — making it among the most ambitious wildlife diplomacy events ever organised.
The first truly global big cat platform
What distinguishes the June summit and the proposed declaration from all previous international conservation efforts is their scope. Earlier forums, most notably the International Tiger Forum, concentrated on a single species. The New Delhi Declaration, by contrast, will address all seven of the world’s principal big cat species in a unified framework for the first time — an acknowledgement that the ecological challenges facing these apex predators, from habitat fragmentation and poaching to climate change and disease, are interconnected and demand a coordinated global response.
The seven species collectively inhabit 95 countries across three continents, meaning their conservation is genuinely a matter of global responsibility rather than regional concern. The declaration is intended to serve as a living framework — one that encourages more nations to join the alliance and make binding commitments to conservation goals over the coming decades.
Draft circulated to 119 nations
According to sources with knowledge of the proceedings, the IBCA secretariat has already circulated a draft of the declaration among its 24 member countries as well as 95 range countries — nations where one or more of the seven big cat species exist in the wild.
Significantly, ten of the member nations are from Africa, reflecting the continent’s central importance to the conservation of lions, leopards, cheetahs, and jaguars. Countries including Kazakhstan, Namibia, and Thailand have been granted observer status, broadening the diplomatic footprint of the alliance ahead of the summit.
PM Modi expected to lead high-level proceedings
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to participate in the summit alongside heads of state and senior government representatives from multiple countries, lending the event considerable diplomatic weight. The New Delhi Declaration is likely to be formally presented for adoption during this high-level plenary session.
The timing of the summit — scheduled on June 1, a day after the India-Africa Forum Summit on May 31 — is no coincidence. The sequencing underscores India’s deliberate effort to position itself at the forefront of global environmental diplomacy, leveraging its relationships with African nations, several of whom are home to the world’s most important big cat populations.
What the declaration proposes
The proposed declaration is expected to encompass several critical and interrelated areas of conservation action. It will call for the promotion of landscape-level and transboundary habitat connectivity — recognising that big cats require vast, uninterrupted territories that often span national borders and that conservation cannot succeed within the confines of individual protected areas alone.
It will also commit signatory nations to strengthening international cooperation against wildlife crime and poaching, mobilising dedicated financial resources for conservation programmes, and adopting the One Health approach — a framework that recognises the inextricable links between wildlife health, livestock health, and human health, and has become increasingly relevant in an era of emerging zoonotic diseases.
The IBCA: India’s flagship conservation institution
The International Big Cat Alliance was launched on April 9, 2023, by Prime Minister Modi during the 50th anniversary celebrations of Project Tiger — itself one of India’s most celebrated conservation success stories. The Union Cabinet approved a budget of ₹150 crore for the IBCA’s first five years of operation, from 2023 to 2028. Headquartered in New Delhi, the alliance formally became a legal international entity on January 23, 2025, following ratification by its founding members, completing its transition from a political initiative to a fully constituted intergovernmental organisation with treaty-based standing.
India’s conservation diplomacy in action
India’s credentials as a global conservation leader have been built steadily over recent years through a series of ambitious international initiatives. Its landmark cheetah reintroduction programme, which involved the import of cheetahs from Namibia, South Africa, and Botswana, marked the first intercontinental translocation of a wild carnivore species in history.
India is also engaged in ongoing cooperation with Cambodia for the translocation of tigers to repopulate regions where the species has been locally extinct. These efforts, taken together with the IBCA and the proposed New Delhi Declaration, reflect a coherent and ambitious national vision — to not merely protect wildlife within India’s own borders, but to actively shape the global architecture of conservation governance for generations to come
