Design
your own wildlife Tour
We'll Support you tailor-make your tour- step by step.
India Travel Forum 
Tours
Exploring
Indian Wildlife
Tiger Conservation In India
Project
Tiger - India
Project Tiger
In the early 1900s over 40,000 tigers lived in
India. By 1972, relentless hunting by royal princes, colonial officials
and later foreign trophy hunters reduced the population to less than 2,000
scattered individuals. A ban on hunting was introduced in 1970 and in
1973 a systematic effort began under Project Tiger to create the conditions
necessary for a recovery, starting with the establishment of 9 special
sanctuaries. Since then the number of tiger reserves has grown to 25 supplemented
by 66 other protected areas, encompassing perhaps 40% of the total tiger
population ofIndia.
A census in 1989 estimated there to be over 4,300 tigers, a significant improvement in the situation. But a renewed population collapse began and by 1997 numbers had fallen by a quarter to 3,232. This setback was countered by fresh efforts at conservation, but opinions now diverge as to whether the tiger can be saved. The remaining population is no longer continuous but isolated into four separate areas, the largest of which is the hilly jungle area of east-central India, which was already known among hunters in the 19th century as the best tiger country. The other areas are the forested belt of the southern Western Ghats, the chain of hills and swamps known as the 'terai' running along the foot of the Himalayas and the mountainous jungles of northeastern India. Many of the tigers still survive outside national parks or other sanctuaries.
The principal threat to the future existence of the tiger is loss of habitat. This is of greater long-term significance than illegal hunting and the trade in tiger bones and other parts for so-called Chinese traditional medicine. Degradation of forest lands, widespread poaching of prey animals and losses to development projects like dams, roads and mining have resulted not only in a reduction of habitat but also fragmentation into disconnected pockets. Tigers occupy large territories in order to have sufficient prey available, indeed average tiger density in India's forests cannot exceed 3 or 4 animals per 100 square kilometres. Only very extensive tracts of relatively undisturbed forest can provide the conditions necessary for continued reproduction and survival.
A further problem is the fall in public support for tiger conservation. The traditional approach of wildlife conservationists in India has emphasized access to the levers of power and neglected long-term efforts to explain wildlife conservation to the mass of the people. As a result, there is widespread disinterest among the growing urban population, and near national parks rural communities have become hotbeds of opposition to tiger conservation. Conflicts over grazing restrictions and fuelwood collection are exploited by local politicians, while commercial interests wait on the sidelines, hoping to gain exploitation rights in protected areas.
In addition, socially conscious political activists now oppose tiger conservation, because the rights and needs of tribal people, usually the first to be resettled outside national park boundaries, have often been disregarded. Calling for 'people-oriented conservation', they claim that local people, given the authority and ownership over natural and wildlife resources, will display the foresight needed to conserve them. At least so far as the tiger is concerned, most conservationists doubt this and point to insoluble conflicts of interest.
Not least among such conflicts is the death of up to 100 persons per year due to attacks by wild animals. Most deaths are caused by tiger and elephant. often in areas where reductions in available habitat or the complete destruction of traditional migration routes have forced them to survive in cultivated and inhabited areas. Because the people affected are mostly the rural poor, whose political influence remains limited, the problem has been mostly neglected. However, it is unlikely that the killings will be tolerated much longer. So far as tigers are concerned, most conservationists believe that in the future they will only survive in areas where there is no human population.
The government has responded to the crisis of relations between national parks and local communities by initiating eco-development projects, which are intended to encourage alternative sources of livelihood, fodder and fuel on the periphery of protected areas. Meanwhile the Tiger Conservation Strategy and Action Plan was initiated in 1996 by the World Wide Fund for Nature India in response to the renewed fall in tiger numbers. It provided immediate relief to several national parks where lack of funds and equipment were threatening a complete breakdown in conservation efforts. WWF-India continues to provide vehicles, radios and even uniforms, as well as operating a compensation scheme for livestock killed by tigers, in places where state agencies are not yet completely able to fulfill their duties. An important role in creating public awareness and support for the tiger is played by numerous local conservation groups set up in the last few years all over India. Some of these are now generating sufficient funds to make a significant active contribution to tiger conservation.
A new consensus on saving the tiger may gradually come together in India, but it is doubtful how much time is available. Half of the tigers in the world live in India, and the other populations scattered from Sumatra to Siberia are even more threatened than those on the subcontinent. No doubt India's growing urban middle-class will eventually come to mourn their lost wildernesses and be ready to preserve what is left of them. However, until then 20 or 30 years may pass, a time in which the Tiger and many other ofIndia's rare and endangered animals may become extinct.
A census in 1989 estimated there to be over 4,300 tigers, a significant improvement in the situation. But a renewed population collapse began and by 1997 numbers had fallen by a quarter to 3,232. This setback was countered by fresh efforts at conservation, but opinions now diverge as to whether the tiger can be saved. The remaining population is no longer continuous but isolated into four separate areas, the largest of which is the hilly jungle area of east-central India, which was already known among hunters in the 19th century as the best tiger country. The other areas are the forested belt of the southern Western Ghats, the chain of hills and swamps known as the 'terai' running along the foot of the Himalayas and the mountainous jungles of northeastern India. Many of the tigers still survive outside national parks or other sanctuaries.
The principal threat to the future existence of the tiger is loss of habitat. This is of greater long-term significance than illegal hunting and the trade in tiger bones and other parts for so-called Chinese traditional medicine. Degradation of forest lands, widespread poaching of prey animals and losses to development projects like dams, roads and mining have resulted not only in a reduction of habitat but also fragmentation into disconnected pockets. Tigers occupy large territories in order to have sufficient prey available, indeed average tiger density in India's forests cannot exceed 3 or 4 animals per 100 square kilometres. Only very extensive tracts of relatively undisturbed forest can provide the conditions necessary for continued reproduction and survival.
A further problem is the fall in public support for tiger conservation. The traditional approach of wildlife conservationists in India has emphasized access to the levers of power and neglected long-term efforts to explain wildlife conservation to the mass of the people. As a result, there is widespread disinterest among the growing urban population, and near national parks rural communities have become hotbeds of opposition to tiger conservation. Conflicts over grazing restrictions and fuelwood collection are exploited by local politicians, while commercial interests wait on the sidelines, hoping to gain exploitation rights in protected areas.
In addition, socially conscious political activists now oppose tiger conservation, because the rights and needs of tribal people, usually the first to be resettled outside national park boundaries, have often been disregarded. Calling for 'people-oriented conservation', they claim that local people, given the authority and ownership over natural and wildlife resources, will display the foresight needed to conserve them. At least so far as the tiger is concerned, most conservationists doubt this and point to insoluble conflicts of interest.
Not least among such conflicts is the death of up to 100 persons per year due to attacks by wild animals. Most deaths are caused by tiger and elephant. often in areas where reductions in available habitat or the complete destruction of traditional migration routes have forced them to survive in cultivated and inhabited areas. Because the people affected are mostly the rural poor, whose political influence remains limited, the problem has been mostly neglected. However, it is unlikely that the killings will be tolerated much longer. So far as tigers are concerned, most conservationists believe that in the future they will only survive in areas where there is no human population.
The government has responded to the crisis of relations between national parks and local communities by initiating eco-development projects, which are intended to encourage alternative sources of livelihood, fodder and fuel on the periphery of protected areas. Meanwhile the Tiger Conservation Strategy and Action Plan was initiated in 1996 by the World Wide Fund for Nature India in response to the renewed fall in tiger numbers. It provided immediate relief to several national parks where lack of funds and equipment were threatening a complete breakdown in conservation efforts. WWF-India continues to provide vehicles, radios and even uniforms, as well as operating a compensation scheme for livestock killed by tigers, in places where state agencies are not yet completely able to fulfill their duties. An important role in creating public awareness and support for the tiger is played by numerous local conservation groups set up in the last few years all over India. Some of these are now generating sufficient funds to make a significant active contribution to tiger conservation.
A new consensus on saving the tiger may gradually come together in India, but it is doubtful how much time is available. Half of the tigers in the world live in India, and the other populations scattered from Sumatra to Siberia are even more threatened than those on the subcontinent. No doubt India's growing urban middle-class will eventually come to mourn their lost wildernesses and be ready to preserve what is left of them. However, until then 20 or 30 years may pass, a time in which the Tiger and many other ofIndia's rare and endangered animals may become extinct.
Tiger Conservation Activities in Various National Park
Project Tiger
Wildlfe Conservation
Activities in National Parks
Tigers India - Fact File
Tiger Distribution in India
Forest Distribution in India
