PIB 11-09-22
Tactical Leadership Programme
- In the month of July 2022, the Indian Air Force (IAF) carried out a one-month long engagement with the Egyptian Air Force (EAF) at the Egyptian Fighter Weapon School, located in Cairo West Air Force Base.
- This interaction was held under the aegis of the Tactical Leadership Program of EAF.
- This was a first of its kind interaction for both the air forces as it was conducted between their respective Fighter Weapon Schools.
- On behalf of the IAF, Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment (TACDE) participated in the programme with three Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft and six Combat Instructor Pilots.
Action Plan for Introduction of Cheetah in India
Objectives of the project are-
- To establish breeding cheetah populations in safe habitats across its historical range and manage them as a metapopulation.
- To use the cheetah as a charismatic flagship and umbrella species to garner resources for restoring open forest and savanna systems that will benefit biodiversity and ecosystem services from these ecosystems.
- To enhance India’s capacity to sequester carbon through ecosystem restoration activities in cheetah conservation areas and thereby contribute towards the global climate change mitigation goals.
- To use the ensuing opportunity for eco-development and eco-tourism to enhance local community livelihoods.
- To manage any conflict by cheetah or other wildlife with local communities within cheetah conservation areas expediently through compensation, awareness, and management actions to win community support.
Cheetah is the only large carnivore that has become extinct in independent India.
The introduction of the cheetah is not only a species recovery program but an effort to restore ecosystems with a lost element that has played a significant role in their evolutionary history, allow ecosystems to provide services to their full potential, and use the cheetah as an umbrella species for conserving the biodiversity of grasslands, savanna and open forest systems.