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A Historic Step for Sri Lanka’s Wildlife
On April 19, 2026, a quiet but significant announcement emerged from a list of bilateral outcomes following Indian Vice President C. P. Radhakrishnan’s official visit to Sri Lanka. Tucked alongside agreements on housing, healthcare, railway rehabilitation, and scholarships was a declaration with potentially far-reaching consequences for wildlife conservation: Sri Lanka has agreed to join the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) — the India-led global initiative to protect the world’s seven major big cat species.
For Sri Lanka, this is not merely a diplomatic gesture. The island is home to the Sri Lankan leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya) — a subspecies found nowhere else on Earth, classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, and facing mounting threats from habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, and poaching. Sri Lanka’s decision to align itself with a global big cat conservation framework could not have come at a more critical moment.
What Is the International Big Cat Alliance?
The International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) was launched by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 9th April 2023, during the event commemorating 50 years of India’s Project Tiger. It focuses on the protection and conservation of seven major big cats of the world: the tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar, and puma.
The Framework Agreement on the establishment of the IBCA officially came into force on 23rd January 2025, making it a full-fledged treaty-based inter-governmental international organisation and international legal entity. Five countries — the Republic of Nicaragua, the Kingdom of Eswatini, the Republic of India, the Federal Republic of Somalia, and the Republic of Liberia — have deposited instruments of ratification. As of that date, 27 countries, including India, have consented to join the IBCA.
The Union Cabinet allocated a one-time budgetary support of Rs 150 crore for the IBCA for five years from 2023–24 to 2027–28. It includes an Assembly of Members, a Standing Committee, and a Secretariat based in India. The framework is modelled after the International Solar Alliance (ISA).
The IBCA’s objectives are both ambitious and practical. They include promoting the conservation of all seven big cat species across their natural habitats, combating poaching and the illegal wildlife trade through coordinated enforcement frameworks, facilitating knowledge sharing and scientific research between member countries, promoting community-based conservation strategies, and leveraging global financial and technological resources for conservation programmes. The Secretariat is headquartered in New Delhi, and a Headquarters Agreement between India and the IBCA was signed on April 17, 2025.
India’s Conservation Credentials: Why This Alliance Matters
The IBCA is not India’s first act of conservation leadership — it is the culmination of decades of experience that the rest of the world is now being invited to learn from.
India has a long-standing experience on the tiger agenda and exemplary conservation models for other big cats like the lion, snow leopard, and leopard. The recent translocation and successful implementation of Project Cheetah in India further demonstrates the country’s leading role in big cat conservation.
Inspired by the success of India’s Project Tiger, which has contributed significantly to the conservation of tigers and made India the home of 70% of the world’s tiger population, the IBCA extends India’s conservation model to a global level. India hosts five of the seven IBCA species — the tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, and cheetah — making it uniquely placed to provide expertise across the full spectrum of big cat conservation.
For Sri Lanka, the value of this partnership is clear. India has directly relevant experience in managing human-leopard conflict, protecting fragmented habitats, and building community-based conservation programmes — precisely the challenges the Sri Lankan leopard faces today.
Why This Matters for the Sri Lankan Leopard
The Sri Lankan leopard is an extraordinary animal. As the island’s sole apex predator — with no lions, tigers, or wolves to compete with — it has evolved in unique isolation to become one of the largest leopard subspecies in Asia. Males can weigh up to 77 kg, and the species is found across every major habitat type on the island, from the dry scrub jungles of Yala to the mist-covered highlands of Horton Plains.
Yet the kotiya, as it is known in Sinhala, is in trouble. The population is estimated at fewer than 800 to 950 mature individuals and is probably declining. Since 2010, over 90 leopards are known to have been killed by people in Sri Lanka — through wire snares, retaliatory poisoning, and occasional direct shooting. Habitat loss and fragmentation, particularly in the central highlands where tea estates and development projects have severed leopard corridors, are accelerating. The species is also threatened by the illegal trade in leopard canine teeth, which are worn as talismans by some communities.
These are not problems Sri Lanka can solve in isolation. The IBCA offers something the island currently lacks: access to a global network of expertise, funding mechanisms, best practice frameworks, and political momentum for big cat conservation. Countries like India, which has dramatically improved its leopard and tiger populations through structured national programmes, can offer directly applicable lessons.
Sri Lanka’s Own Conservation Momentum
Sri Lanka’s decision to join the IBCA comes at a moment when the country’s domestic leopard conservation is gaining real traction — suggesting the island is well positioned to contribute to the alliance as well as benefit from it.
In August 2025, Sri Lanka took a pioneering step in addressing one of the biggest drivers of leopard mortality: retaliatory killings by farmers whose livestock are attacked by leopards. Sri Lanka launched its first-ever livestock insurance scheme to address human-wildlife conflict and protect the endangered Sri Lankan leopard. The initiative was unveiled by the United Nations Development Programme’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (UNDP BIOFIN), in partnership with the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) and LOLC Insurance, under the guidance of the Department of Wildlife Conservation. This first-of-its-kind programme provides rapid monetary compensation to farmers who lose livestock to leopard predation.
Once approved, compensation is paid within 72 hours — swiftly easing the financial burden on farmers. Beyond immediate relief, the programme promotes preventative measures such as predator-proof night-time enclosures, communal livestock pens for shared overnight housing, and an innovative ‘Cattle Bank’ system, which offers replacement animals instead of monetary payouts.
BIOFIN’s Regional Technical Lead Annabelle Trinidad said: “Insurance is part of a wider nature risk management approach. Today, Sri Lanka sets a benchmark for Asia in addressing human-wildlife conflict through finance solutions.”
This scheme — the first of its kind in South Asia — is exactly the kind of community-based, finance-driven conservation innovation that the IBCA exists to develop and share. Sri Lanka, in joining the alliance, may find itself not only a recipient of expertise but a contributor of it.
The Wilderness and Wildlife Conservation Trust (WWCT), founded in 2004, has conducted over two decades of rigorous field research through its Leopard Project, building one of the most comprehensive ecological datasets on any leopard subspecies in the world. The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka (WNPS), one of Asia’s oldest conservation organisations, has been central to the establishment of every major national park in the country. Sri Lanka’s Department of Wildlife Conservation manages an extensive protected area network. These are not the institutions of a country starting from scratch — they are the foundations of a serious conservation partner.
The Sri Lankan Leopard in a Global Context
Sri Lanka’s membership of the IBCA also places the Sri Lankan leopard within a broader global narrative about the leopard as a species. Of the nine recognised leopard subspecies, three — the Amur, Arabian, and Indochinese — are Critically Endangered. Several others are declining rapidly. The leopard, as a species, has lost approximately 75% of its historic range globally.
The IBCA’s focus is not only on individual species but on the ecosystems and habitats that support them. For the Sri Lankan leopard, this means potential access to international funding for habitat corridor restoration, anti-poaching technology, and community engagement programmes — resources that national conservation budgets alone struggle to provide.
It also means Sri Lanka’s leopard story becomes part of a larger conversation. When India shares its learnings from Project Tiger and Project Leopard with the international community, Sri Lanka can now sit at that table — learning, contributing, and advocating for its endemic subspecies at a global level.
India and Sri Lanka: Natural Conservation Partners
The bilateral context of Sri Lanka joining the IBCA is also significant. India and Sri Lanka share deep historical, cultural, and ecological ties. The Palk Strait separating the two nations is narrow enough that wildlife corridors and shared ecosystems have ecological relevance. Both countries host leopard populations — India’s Indian leopard (Panthera pardus fusca) and Sri Lanka’s endemic kotiya — that face similar pressures from habitat loss and human-wildlife conflict.
India’s experience managing leopard populations in human-dominated landscapes — including fragmented forest patches, agricultural areas, and peri-urban zones — is directly transferable to Sri Lanka’s central highlands, where leopards navigate tea estates and village boundaries on a daily basis.
The announcement of IBCA membership alongside agreements on housing, healthcare, and infrastructure is also telling. It signals that wildlife conservation is being treated as a dimension of the bilateral relationship, not an afterthought. In a region where development pressures consistently override environmental concerns, that framing matters.
What Happens Next?
Sri Lanka’s agreement to join the IBCA is, as of now, a statement of intent. The formal process of signing and ratifying the Framework Agreement — as India, Nicaragua, Eswatini, Somalia, and Liberia have already done — will follow through diplomatic and parliamentary channels.
But the significance of the commitment should not be underestimated. For the Sri Lankan leopard, IBCA membership could unlock access to new funding streams for habitat protection and corridor restoration, technical expertise from countries with proven big cat conservation models, collaborative anti-poaching frameworks and intelligence-sharing networks, international scientific partnerships for population monitoring and genetic research, and a global platform to raise the profile of the kotiya and attract conservation investment.
For Sri Lanka as a country, it signals a willingness to align domestic wildlife priorities with global conservation goals — and to position the island’s extraordinary biodiversity as a matter of national pride and international responsibility.
Conclusion: The Kotiya’s Moment
The Sri Lankan leopard has prowled this island for hundreds of thousands of years. It has survived deforestation, colonial hunting, civil conflict, and the relentless expansion of human settlement. It remains, against considerable odds, the undisputed master of Sri Lanka’s wild places — from the dry plains of Yala to the misty ridges of Knuckles.
Sri Lanka’s agreement to join the International Big Cat Alliance will not, by itself, save the kotiya. Conservation is built on decades of patient fieldwork, community engagement, policy reform, and sustained funding — not diplomatic communiqués. But what it does is connect the Sri Lankan leopard’s story to a larger global movement, give Sri Lankan conservationists access to a wider network of support, and send a clear signal — domestically and internationally — that this island takes the survival of its apex predator seriously.
For a subspecies with fewer than 1,000 individuals remaining, every signal of commitment matters. This one, coming at the highest levels of bilateral diplomacy, matters more than most.
Key Facts: International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA)
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Launched | 9 April 2023, by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi |
| Occasion | 50th anniversary of India’s Project Tiger |
| Came into Force | 23 January 2025 |
| Headquarters | New Delhi, India (Headquarters Agreement signed April 17, 2025) |
| Ratified Members | India, Nicaragua, Eswatini, Somalia, Liberia |
| Countries Consented | 27 countries (as of early 2025), including Sri Lanka (April 2026) |
| Seven Big Cats | Tiger, Lion, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Cheetah, Jaguar, Puma |
| India’s Funding Pledge | Rs 150 crore (~USD 18 million) for 2023–2028 |
| Modelled After | International Solar Alliance (ISA) |
| Eligible Members | All 97 range countries of the seven big cat species and non-range nations |
References and Further Reading
- Newswire Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka agrees to join India-led International Big Cat Alliance. April 19, 2026.
- Press Information Bureau, Government of India. International Big Cat Alliance Framework Agreement officially comes into force. February 2025.
- IBCA Official Website. About IBCA — International Big Cat Alliance.
- UNDP BIOFIN Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Launches First Livestock Insurance Scheme to Protect Leopards and Livelihoods. August 2025.
- IUCN Red List. Panthera pardus — Leopard Species Assessment. 2024.
- Wikipedia. International Big Cat Alliance.
- Wikipedia. Sri Lankan Leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya).
- Wilderness and Wildlife Conservation Trust. The Leopard Project — Sri Lanka.
- Wildlife and Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka. WNPS — Sri Lanka’s Oldest Conservation Organisation.
- Department of Wildlife Conservation Sri Lanka. DWC — Official Website.
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