Losing time for the tiger Panthera tigris: delayed action puts a globally threatened species at risk of local extinction

Meeting global and regional environmental targets is challenging, given the multiplicity of stakeholders and their diverse and often competing policy agendas and objectives. Relatively few studies have sought to systematically analyse the progress, or lack thereof, of institutionally complex and diffuse projects. Here we analyse one such project, which aims to protect and restore a critical landscape corridor for tigers Panthera tigris in north-western India, using a temporal–analytic framework that integrates ecological information on species population status and spatial connectivity modelling with a systematic examination of the decision-making process. We find that even with adequate ecological knowledge the tiger population is on the verge of local extinction because of weak institutional support, poor adaptive planning and ineffective leadership in a complex political arena, which has led to delays in conservation action. From the outset the conservation agencies and NGOs that were the primary drivers of the project lacked awareness of the political idiosyncrasies of coordinating the actions of disparate agencies within the decision-making process. To secure better future environmental outcomes we recommend the adoption of an improved project appraisal methodology that explicitly encompasses an evaluation of organizational incentives, to determine political buy-in, including alignment with organizational objectives and funding availability

Human resettlement and tiger conservation – Socio-economic assessment of pastoralists reveals a rare conservation opportunity in a human-dominated landscape

Resettlement of people for conservation is a contentious issue, but remains an important policy for conserving species like tigers which require vast, inviolate habitats. Recommendations to resettle communities should ideally be supported with careful evaluation of the needs of wildlife, socio-economic characteristics of dependent communities and their attitudes, and we present one such case study. Using a semi-structured questionnaire survey of 158 households across a gradient of tiger occupancy, we found overwhelming preference for resettlement among pastoralist Gujjars and hence an unexpected conservation opportunity to expand inviolate areas for tigers in the western Terai Arc Landscape. The main ‘push factors’ identified were declining forest productivity adversely affecting incomes and lack of access to education and health facilities. Thus, our findings represent a rare instance where excessive extraction of natural resources, recognized to be detrimental for biodiversity, is also the primary driver for resettlement. The desire for resettlement was also re-enforced by losses of livestock to diseases (72.7%) and carnivores (25.1%), which was uncompensated in 89% of the cases, and positive experiences from previously resettled households. Demand for resettlement was uniformly strong regardless of local tiger occupancy, but we suggest that funding for resettlement be prioritized for households in high tiger occupancy areas, given higher livestock depredation and possibilities for conflict. Our findings, therefore, represent a novel landscape-level conservation strategy that takes account of socio-economic circumstances across a gradient of predator pressure, and could build a constituency for tiger conservation among local communities consistent with national and global objectives