Conservation Narratives: Are we hung-up on the success or stuck in a rut?

 

Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, 2018.

Part I

In the last few years, we have celebrated the success of doubling tiger population, leopard population, rhino population, and vulture population nationally as well as regionally. This success is hard-earned. In case of the rhino and vulture populations, both saw significant declines due to man – poaching and habitat loss in case of the rhino, and the NSAID-drug in case of the vultures. The longest recovery has been spearheaded for the tiger than any other species in India – and it has seen its successes, if not without localized setbacks where populations declined or were locally extirpated. Regionally, too, the successes have been worth celebrating, the hard-ground barasingha found in Madhya Pradesh has not only increased in numbers to levels now considered safer than they were a decade ago, but also expanded through reintroductions to historically-occupied sites.

There are report after reports celebrating a revival of wildlife in India, often symbolised by the charismatic species. No other animal has been celebrated like this than the tiger. Naturally so, it is a conservation story long in the making, and despite the pitfalls, it has borne fruits – the tiger population, if not completely out of danger, has shown measurable recovery. Much of the success is owed to the tiger reserves, where immense resources in terms of manpower and finances, has led to this outcome, but also equally if not more to the local communities who share a vast area with the tigers, resulting in death or injury, property loss, loss of ancestral lands, as well as in retaliatory killings of tigers. Conservation success of the tigers is also owed to the people who have to bear the brunt of crop damage caused by wild herbivores thriving under protection as ‘tiger prey’.

Part II

While not ignored, the celebration of people’s participation in the conservation success of the tiger has received scant attention. It received a rather surprising attention following a Science article in 2025. The title speaks of tiger recovery ‘amid’ people and poverty. I failed to understand how people and poverty are different. Before coming to address this, I discuss this article to bring home the point about narratives in conservation.

It makes a valid summary of the point that land sparing (removing people so that wildlife thrives) alone has not helped recover tiger population, and land sharing (where both people and wildlife coexist) has played a key role in this. While it doesn’t discuss case studies, the best I can think of is Achankmar Tiger Reserve. The tiger population here has been in a forever flux, now harbouring about 10 tigers. In 2018 when I worked here, at least six tigers were documented. I theorize that Achanakmar is serving as a habitat only because of the connectivity through multi-use land land tenures inhabited primarily by tribal and other forest-dwelling communities, with other high density tiger habitats in Kanha to the west and Bandhavgarh to the north. It does talk about areas that have shown very low tiger densities for more than a decade, such as Guru Ghasidas National Park north of Achanakmar. It concludes, ‘… land sparing is essential to realize the benefits of land sharing’ without considering how land sharing is also helping keep some Protected Areas populated, like Achanakmar. It is likely an oversight than nitpicking, I believe.

It makes a point of poverty-related hunting as a cause of what conservation practitioners term ‘empty forest’ (not used in this publication) tiger reserves such as Guru Ghasidas, Palamau, Similipal, Satkosia, Sitanadi-Udanti, and Indravati (some also seeing extremism conflict). It states, ‘these areas are among the poorest districts in India … with high incidences of bushmeat consumption …’ This is partly true, partly unhelpful. One, the districts might be poor, but it is not the districts that pour resources into Protected Areas (refer to the above statement where they say land sparing is essential…), it is the states and the centre that does so – I make a case for this in my book, about how irrelevant it is to consider people living adjoining protected areas as a major factor for its poor management. For such a deduction, the state’s GDP and the monies provided by the state for conservation need to be taken into account, not the district-level poverty. Two, it implies, without explicitly stating, that poverty results in bushmeat hunting, which is not deduced from any citation – it is assumed. This assumption is dangerous given these are mainly tribal-dominant areas, communities who were historically shifting-cultivators (now extinct for more than a century), and hunter-trappers. Even if poverty is a reason for this, culture is a larger factor here, which it fails to recognize. Three, it talks of ‘biodiversity recovery’ while being species-centric in its theme, which, although the tiger is an umbrella and a flagship conservation species, does not represent the actual biodiversity of a place. In my research for my book on central India, this region remains most understudied in terms of its biodiversity. Four, I wonder why it speaks only of these six Central India and Dandakaranya tiger reserves, why not from North East, where the tiger reserves have low densities similar if not less than those mentioned in the piece? Is it because the tribal communities here have autonomy?

It makes a valid point that insurgency-hit areas act as poaching havens, with areas showing wild population recoveries where insurgency reduces. Protected Areas such as Manas National Park, as mentioned in the article, are the model example of this. One, the link between successful conservation and human wellbeing is implied but not related with insurgency issues, which affects both, with long-term adverse effects on people. Insurgency reduces chances of developmental programmes reaching people, such areas become poorer – and remain poorer – than during peacetime. Two points come to mind when discussing this. Two, while this point may be out of the purview of this publication, it is worth mentioning that just as extremism results in poor wildlife conservation, so does corruption. Granted that corruption is difficult to identify, prove, and even quantify, but evidences of cases of corruption have received coverage, such as this recent one where a DFO overlooking tendu or bidi-leaf management was arrested on corruption charges. Allegation of corruptions are reported from other states as well. How corruption undermines conservation, or in other words, leads to population declines, is rarely ever considered.

It speaks of human population in terms of prosperity and poverty. It states that tiger population recovery is ‘constrained at opposite ends of the socioeconomic section, by intensive urbanization and poverty’ and asks for an ‘inclusive and sustainable rural prosperity’ without the ‘land-use change–driven economy’. While they discuss that such areas are generally thinly populated, they circle back to say that since these areas are poor, the people extract resources from forests and hunt, which leads to regional extinctions, and that a growing population here leads to a decline in biodiversity. They further make a point that tigers occur in areas with relatively prosperous areas – prosperity brought by tiger tourism and ex gratia compensation programmes. I have four points to discuss here. One, while the correlation between tourism and prosperity is true, it is not causational. It is ironic it is even considered so. Tiger tourism is region restricted, and does not benefit the entirety of the border surrounding a popular tiger reserve. Furthermore, what is the measure of economic prosperity it speaks of, really? Is it merely money earned from seasonal tourism where local communities are largely the mid- and low-level paid employees and the compensation received if their livestock or a family member dies? It fails to recognize that tourism is a part of their larger income, most of which comes from agriculture and forest produce collection. Two, the scale they balance tiger recovery on – between prosperity and poverty – is curious. It must be known that what stands today are habitats used, managed, and protected by tribal and other forest-dweller communities, in addition to the hunting blocks of erstwhile kingdoms, long before protected areas were carved from these spaces – I discuss this in detail in my book. These are invariably also areas where people were kept on the margins of development and welfare for 200 years by the colonial rulers. What conservation practitioners call prosperity is preposterous for these people – they want growth through schools, roads, and hospitals, not a struggling service-based industry. Three, it omits the whole point of rights, community ownership, and community-led and owned practices of biodiversity conservation. It simply reduces it to resource extraction and hunting due to poverty. This simplistic deduction is not in the spirit of its first line, that land sparing alone has not helped recover tiger population, yet it mentions it boldly, and this may be my interpretation of it but it is not irrelevant, that it suggests putting protected areas amidst these poverty-riddled areas to make people prosperous: ‘Protected areas can also bring possibilities not only to protect biodiversity but also to alleviate poverty and secure ecosystem services by sharing benefits with local communities in the proximity.’ While on the surface it may sound like a better idea, that land sparing for a protected area is better than land sparing for a polluting industry, for the displaced people, it is one and the same – and I discuss this in my book in detail. Four, the entirety of North East India is mentioned only as one of the many examples for areas where tigers have become extinct or absent due to hunting or poaching. While I am unaware of the historic densities of tigers in NE excluding Assam, it is worth mentioning here that in India, no species has become extinct due to tribal people hunting, and that modern-day conservation owes it to the poor and marginalized people in revival of India’s wild populations, aided by the government.

It concludes by holistically summarising the various pillars of tiger conservation, which I acknowledge whenever I see a tiger being a tiger. What stumps me is the title of the article – what does it mean, is it open for interpretation? The publication says that wherever tigers have existed historically, human densities are relatively low, yet it mentions that it is not human densities but ‘their attitudes and lifestyles’ that aid in recovery. It suggests that poverty leads to hunting and habitat degradation which limits or stalls recovery, yet it mentions that the balance is between prosperity and poverty. To bring both these points together is a conundrum: does it suggest that high human density and low poverty (or relatively higher prosperity), is the ideal case for tigers as long as their habitats are not utilized by people? Does it suggest that land sparing is the better option for tiger recovery, that we should spare more lands to bring prosperity? Does it suggest that amid people and poverty, tiger can recover provided human population doesn’t grow or continue to extract resources from shared habitats? Does it suggest that amid poverty, tiger recovery is possible given the people become not-too-prosperous? Perhaps it simply implies that despite India’s growing population and high poverty, the tiger recovery has been a success. High GDP states do equally poor in terms of overall biodiversity recoveries, like Maharashtra – the Konkan Maharashtra is devoid of tigers except for a lonely female in Sahyadri Tiger Reserve – what a tragedy to miss talking about. Maharashtra’s track record for bustard and florican conservation, under the umbrella term used as ‘biodiversity recovery’, is abysmal. Two, to appreciate the very many managerial and scientific and bureaucratic forces that came together to make this a success, by adding a ‘amidst’ really takes away the contribution of the ‘people’ – especially the ‘poor people’.

Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but I think the article lacks in justifying the title, not the other way around, for in mentioning people and poverty, it fails to mention, even once, the impact of rich-people driven far-away development that is splicing and eating away at the tiger habitat shared with the peoples for eons – something I discuss in my book.

Part III

Celebration of success stories in conserving nature goes on for a long time. It feels special because it is rare, and it can be destroyed at any instance. The difference lies in how much the celebration undermines the implications of this success – during the project and beyond its lifespan. The article I discuss is not celebratory in tone, even if subtly arrogant. It is the media coverage that is celebratory – and it is going on and on, even as human-tiger conflict, leading to death or injury of people, is increasing. Incidences between 2014 and 2023 have increased from an average of 45 human deaths per year in the first half of the decade to 70 per year in the latter half in India. Maharashtra has outshined all other states, with four out of ten deaths occurring here as per one report. How this undermines the ‘success’ of conservation is beside the point, how are we celebrating the success even as it has repercussions is what narratives in conservation to be called out for.

How much of a celebration, without a critical assessment, enough? And is critical assessment only limited to what led to the success, and that is the end of it? Are those who read about India’s success of tiger recovery seeking to replicate only the ‘goods’ without a formal, published, discussion on the drawbacks, setbacks, and consequences of such successes? Or are we hung-up on the success that we can’t look ahead?

Within the last few years, we have celebrated the doubling of tigers, celebrated fifty years of Project Tiger, and remembered the tiger spokespersons who have departed. It is not that there are no voices that speak for a critical assessment of the success. Twice a year, number of tiger deaths and human deaths are discussed in the assemblies, at least on paper, and are picked up by the media. But this has never received the critical attention the way the success has. In fact, the priority lies in putting ducks in a row – by scientifically proving that relocation helps in ‘global conservation goals’. Are people and poverty, but to put it in a more appropriate way, are generational marginalization and poor opportunities not the reasons why conflict is predominantly in shared habitats? While the publication does acknowledge it, it does so from the strict lens of wildlife conservation – a lens that lacks multi-dimensional view of conservation science. It takes more than a biologist to realise that mere tourism is not the solution to bring prosperity and reduce conflict – a point I discuss in detail in my book.

For a while I have pondered that maybe we are getting stuck in a rut. There is a lot to tell about tiger conservation story, no doubt – there are piles of big data lying about to be meddled with. There is also the ongoing high of the success, but maybe, just maybe, the rut has set, preventing to take look at the nuances of success. We are in the comfort space, blocking out all the noises that disturb the peace, silencing all the voices that cause dissent. This rut will be dangerous, because chronic conflict often leads to loss of trust in conservation, and mere economic benefits of conservation does not mean inclusive conservation. There has to be a system of agency, justice, and rights, it is not merely about appropriate compensation.

In writing my thoughts here, I present a view that is so far hidden. How many times have we (yes, I have, too) celebrated the increasing number of tigers, yet paid no attention to the increasing number of people dying due to human-tiger conflict? Yes, the government has recognized 17 districts to focus on conflict mitigation, but the amount is paltry. Discussions on mainstream conservation narratives do not undermine the success of it – quite contrary, they offer a holistic picture for us to learn from ourselves, for others to learn from our lessons, and finally, to realise that conservation narratives are only real when they are looked at from a multidimensional lens.

--

My latest book, a narrative history (non-fiction) of Central India looks at the natural history of the place and the history of its nature conservation movement from the eyes of the tribal communities. It is available from the publisher’s website and Amazon India.