An Inconvenient Truth: Tiger Conservation Beyond Protected Areas

On International Tiger Day (July 29) of 2019, the Government of India declared that we had 2,967 wild tigers in the country — more than 75 per cent of the feline’s global population. This was welcome news, and the culmination of a massive exercise. In order to do the All India Tiger Estimation (AITE), a total of 3,81,400 sq km of forests was surveyed over 5,93,882 days. More than 76,000 tiger photographs were captured by camera traps laid over forests in 20 Indian states, and India, yet again, proved that if there was any hope for Panthera tigris, it was here!

Our numbers are definitely reason to celebrate but is India really doing enough to secure its national animal?

India’s tiger habitats have been classified into five major tiger landscapes: the Shivalik-Gangetic Plains of northern India, Central India and the Eastern Ghats, the Western Ghats, North Eastern Hills and the Brahmaputra Flood Plains, and Sundarbans. Our tiger reserves occupy 72,750 sq km — just over 2.2 per cent of the country’s geographical area — but we also have tigers outside the purview of the Protected Area (PA) network, in forests that are substantially occupied by humans. The tiger reserves receive protection, but the connecting habitats (corridors) are often outside the national park or wildlife sanctuary, and therefore do not receive the same level of protection.

Our numbers are definitely reason to celebrate but is India really doing enough to secure its national animal?

While states such as Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Assam have done well with their conservation efforts, no tigers were recorded in Buxa (West Bengal), Dampa (Mizoram), and Palamau (Jharkhand) reserves. The tiger landscapes of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha are contiguous with high-concentration tiger areas of Madhya Pradesh (having 526 tigers) and Maharashtra (having 312 tigers), but the spill over populations face an uncertain future as they move eastwards through corridors with human-dominated landscapes.

Ideally, habitat corridors should help in connecting these tiger reserves to facilitate the dispersal of sub-adult tigers from natal areas for greater genetic diversity. However, most tiger reserves are surrounded by human-dominated landscapes, which results in fragmented tiger populations, and increased conflict with locals resulting in causalities on both sides. In fact, tigers falling prey to poaching is not uncommon in these areas. Tigers also use corridors to find new habitats with enough water and prey to sustain them. In human-dominated landscapes, their prey would be livestock, which leads to antagonism among the people.

There are numerous examples of human-tiger conflict. In July 2019, the entire country was shaken by the gory incidence of a tigress being lynched by a mob near Pilibhit Tiger Reserve in Uttar Pradesh. Allegedly, the tigress was in her natural habitat when a youth accidentally approached her, and she fatally mauled the youth. In November 2018, another tigress was killed by an angry mob in Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in Uttar Pradesh, again as a retaliatory measure. Around 60 people have been killed by tigers in India in 2019 alone, and the forest department needs to address these conflict situations, with active involvement of local NGOs and community leaders to prevent more such deaths.

There is also the threat of poaching, due to increasing demand for tiger parts and its derivatives in China, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries. The Wildlife Protection Society of India has documented 34 cases of tiger poaching in 2018,  38 cases in 2019 and 11 so far in 2020, but enforcing anti-poaching measures has been a challenge.

Due to unrest created by extremist groups in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha, the forest department personnel often find it difficult to patrol forests in these areas. The Naxals have been causing trouble in Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha that is spreads over 2,750 sq km and is country’s fourth largest tiger reserve. Such incidences are also not uncommon in the world-famous Kanha Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, and unless these decades-old issues are addressed and sorted, the future of tigers and other wildlife remains bleak.

According to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT), only 10.8 per cent of potential tiger habitat in the Central Indian Landscape is occupied by tigers. The WCT has also identified 23 separate tiger populations in this region, and confirmed the presence of dispersing individual tigers. Add to this, the AITE estimate of 2018, stating the presence of 1,033 tigers in this region alone, and it is clear that the Central Indian Landscape is one of the most promising for long-term tiger conservation.

The Madhya Pradesh Forest Department has been proactive in translocating tigers between their six tiger reserves. Special mention must also be made of the translocation of the hard-ground barasingha (Rucervus duvaucelii branderi) from Kanha to Satpura and the gaur (Bos gaurus) from Kanha to Bandhavgarh to repopulate these species’ previous habitat.

A genetic study by Wildlife Institute of India on the Central Indian tigers mentions one large population of tigers with high genetic variability and sharing alleles (genes that are a result of mutation) with the tiger populations of the northeast, Western Ghats and Terai (V. Kolipakam et al. 2019). This proves the functionality and vitality of the corridors.

Another study called Connecting the dots: Mapping habitat connectivity for tigers (Dutta et al. 2015) found that the highest flow of tigers was between Kanha-Pench, Pench-Satpura, Kanha-Nawegaon, Kanha-Nagzira, Nagzira-Nawegaon, and Nagzira-Pench. Thus, connecting tiger reserves within a landscape through habitat corridors is essential to facilitate dispersal of tigers and other wildlife, and maintain ecological connectivity.

Ironically, ecological connectivity is also one of the main issues faced by this species.

Infrastructure development such as roads have emerged as one of the largest threats to tigers across all tiger landscapes. A report released by Wildlife Conservation Trust in 2018 mentions 399 road, railway, and irrigation projects earmarked for the tiger landscape of Central India and the Eastern Ghats. Fragmentation of crucial wildlife habitats due to such projects may negatively affect the demographic and genetic variability of tigers and other threatened species.

With a few exceptions, most tiger corridors in India are in a state of neglect.

Mitigation measures, planned with the best of intentions, should never be the first choice. Avoidance and circumventing these projects to other areas should be the priority. Wherever mitigation measures, such as underpasses, are inevitable —  as was the case of NH7 passing through Pench Tiger Reserve — no compromise should be made when it comes to funding these structures. It is important to understand that even well-planned linear infrastructure with mitigation measures will affect tiger populations.

Despite warnings issued by tiger biologists and conservationists, efforts are still on to push the expansion of Kandi Road passing through Corbett Tiger Reserve and cutting through the vital corridor between Corbett and Rajaji Tiger Reserves, both in Uttarakhand. In the northeast, the Government of Arunachal Pradesh is planning to construct an elevated highway from Seijosa to Balukpong; a 49-km section of this road will pass through Pakke Tiger Reserve, which will compromise its ecological integrity and its connectivity with Nameri Tiger Reserve in Assam through corridor forests. Dibang Valley, one of biodiversity-rich tiger habitats in Aruanachal Pradesh, is slated to be submerged and 2.7 lakhs tree cut due to the proposed Etalin Hydroelectric Project. It must be remembered that tiger habitat is shared by hundreds of other species too and therefore any destruction to habitat can irreversibly destroy the ecosystem.

With a few exceptions, most tiger corridors in India are in a state of neglect. Habitats have degraded or been destroyed, due to excessive logging for timber, uncontrolled livestock grazing, and human-induced forest fires. Large swathes of land have been brought under plantation of exotic species such as eucalyptus, as is seen in Bandhavgarh-Sanjay Dubri Corridor (BSDC). To improve the situation, The Corbett Foundation (TCF), in collaboration with Madhya Pradesh Forest Department, has begun restoration of over 80 hectares of forest in BSDC by planting and protecting around 42,000 saplings of local tree species.

These newly planted forest corridor areas are fenced and thus protected from livestock grazing. The local community is allowed to harvest grass to stall feed livestock thus reducing grazing pressure on the forest. Such a model should be replicated elsewhere. Agricultural encroachments (under the guise of Forest Rights Act, 2006) and spreading of invasive weeds such as lantana have also modified tiger habitats and changed vegetation dynamics of these areas, affecting prey species of tigers. Despite such land-use changes, it is incredible that tigers inhabit these areas. Or probably they have no choice!

Tigers’ prey include domestic livestock, especially in the areas outside protected areas. According to a research study undertaken by TCF and Aligarh Muslim University, in the buffer zone of Corbett between 2006 and 2015, it was found that tigers kill around 570 livestock annually. Another analysis of livestock depredation from July 2016 to October 2018 in Kanha Tiger Reserve reveals that over 500 livestock were killed by tigers in the buffer zone of the park, while the Kanha-Pench Corridor records an average of around 200 livestock kills every year.

Tigers living in buffer zones and corridors are opportunistic feeders and tend to predate on easy-to-kill livestock although wild prey may be available. Unless there is a mechanism to provide timely and substantial compensation to the affected villagers, these incidents could create a high degree of human-wildlife conflict, resulting in attempts to endanger the life of tigers (and leopards). NGOs such as TCF and WWF-India have been providing an immediate interim compensation to the affected villagers in and around Corbett and Kanha tiger reserves and they have been successful in preventing retaliation and conflict mitigation.

A comprehensive “corridor conservation management plan”, which identifies community as a stakeholder, is the need of the hour.  We must consider all forest areas around tiger reserves as potential tiger habitats and plan the management of these areas accordingly. The resources and frontline staff provided should be enhanced for better surveillance and protection regime.

Community-based wildlife tourism could be a game-changer in ensuring protection to tigers in corridors. By linking wildlife conservation with economic benefits, local communities will be motivated in being partners in conservation. We must create and promote local ecotourism entrepreneurs who can be torchbearers of wildlife conservation. An offbeat path, different from the way tourism in PAs is managed, but without compromising on the wellbeing of wildlife, should be explored to develop these models. Private conservancies that strive to protect and restore habitats and unrestricted movement of wildlife should also be encouraged.

As a global leader in tiger conservation, India must ensure that no stone is left unturned. We must protect tigers from habitat fragmentation due to linear infrastructure, mining, mega dams, forest fires, and encroachment, degradation due to uncontrolled livestock grazing and collection of wood, poaching and hunting, revenge killing by villagers, and genetic isolation. While few states like Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, and Maharashtra have done well with tiger numbers, other states such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and the northeastern states (apart from Assam), have had dismal results with very few or no tigers. Our real success will be when tiger numbers in these states too show an increasing trend and we are able to bring down the cases of human-wildlife conflicts.

Ambitious infrastructure projects should not override ecological concerns. India’s economic policies and development should be built on strong ecological foundations that ensure a secure future for tigers, their prey, and their forest homes. These habitats are also crucial to humans for they hold the sources to numerous rivers that are the lifeline to India’s people, agriculture, and other means of sustenance.

We must now plan for the next 50 years, to ensure conservation of tigers, its prey and its forests in India.