New Delhi, May 9 : There are 28 tiger reserves in the country at present.

These reserves have been assessed by a panel of independent experts based on 45 parameters using the format of the World Commission on Protected Areas of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

The assessment reports have been peer reviewed by the IUCN. Based on this assessment, Sunderban Tiger Reserve has been categorized as ‘Very Good’

The scoring criteria on each individual parameter have been standardized in the methodology to reduce subjectivity of the evaluation and have been assessed quantitatively to arrive at a composite score for each reserve.

The composite score is then assessed on a scale of four grades: Very Good, Good, Satisfactory and Poor.

These parameters are meant to assess the management effectiveness of each reserve and have been adopted to the Indian context from the Management Effectiveness Assessment Framework (MEAF) provided by the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). (ANI)