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Tiger Habitats Grow 30% Amid Successful Conservation in India

India's tiger population has grown significantly, expanding their territory by 30% in 12 years. A new study highlights the role of protected areas, economic stability, and traditional reverence in fostering human-tiger coexistence while ensuring biodiversity conservation.

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Tiger Habitats Grow 30% Amid Successful Conservation in India

Highlighting India’s outstanding tiger preservation success, a recent research, Tiger Recovery in People and Poverty, reveals 30% growth (33,127 sq km) in tiger habitat between 2006 and 2018. The study, carried out by leading tiger conservationists V Y Jhala, Rajesh Gopal, Omar Qureshi, and Ninad Avinash Mungi, attributes this expansion to protected habitats, reduced human population density, and financial stability, therefore indicating the possibility of coexistence of human and tiger.

The research highlights the more general conservation advantages even though India’s tiger population increased from 1,411 in 2006 to 2,967 in 2018–and then further to 3,682 in 2022. Enhancing the tiger’s role as a flagship species for biodiversity conservation, the increase in numbers has benefitted other species including leopards, elephants, sloth bears, and Indian bison (guar) by reinforcing.

Tigers’ Habitats Note Marked Expansion

The research shows tiger-occupied areas grew from 66,389 sq km in 2002 to 99,516 sq km in 2018, close 45% of the expansion occurring from 2014 to 2018. To follow this growth, the scientists examined information from almost 3,000 grids each covering 10 sq km.

The study says that tigers colonized mostly new places close to protected areas with more prey availability, appropriate habitat, low human density, and moderate riches.

Depending on the 1,973 Stripe-occupied Grid Cells

  • 25% were in the central regions of national parks or tiger reserves.
  • Twenty percent were in wildlife refuges or reserve buffer zones,
  • About 10% were found in tiger corridors of habitat.
  • 45 percent were in several types of use areas populated by humans.

The study discovered that about 60 million people reside in these shared tiger habitats, therefore highlighting the success of conservation measures advocating cohabitation rather than isolation.

Balancing Land Sharing and Conservation

Particularly in poor areas, large carnivore rehabilitation in human-dominated ecosystems offers unusual difficulty. Conservationists generally argue between “land sparing” (keeping aside human and wildlife areas) and “land sharing” (living together with wildlife). Still, the research points out the need of combining the two methods.

Though land sparing and land sharing are seen as opposing approaches, our study reveals that both are essential for tiger rehabilitation in India, the writers remark. The results indicate that tiger protection should support human-wildlife coexistence and protected areas.

With an average human density of 250 per square km in the recently colonized tiger territories, this implies that tigers might flourish even in fairly inhabited locations.

Traditional veneration and coexistence

India’s effective conservation, according to lead author V Y Jhala, is mainly due to cultural and religious customs supporting wildlife sensitivity. He explains, “India&’s deep-rooted regard for every life form, including predators, helps to create a situation of coexstence.”

Even though people are present, some states—Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, and Karnataka among them—show strong tiger numbers. The research also brings out areas where tigers have vanished on account of activities including too much bushmeat consumption and poaching. Despite low human density, states like Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and parts of Northeast India showed lower tiger recovery rates.

Problems and Suggestions for More Recovery

Most notably in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand, the study finds 157,527 square kilometers of habitat now free of the species. Reviving tiger populations in these sites will need, according to studies,

Reintroduction initiatives: Building up reserves including Guru Ghasidas, Palamau, Udanti-Sitanadi, Similipal, Satkosia, and Indravati.
Better Habitat Connectivity: Encouraging natural movement and reproduction by improving linkages between isolated tiger populations.
Socio-Economic Development: Economic stability and strong law enforcement are crucial for conservation success.

Important as India’s conservation policies is their preservation of natural heritage using laws and evidence-based policies. Damaging to environmental safety would be their dilution.”

Lessons for International Conservation Initiatives

India’s successful tiger conservation serves as a roadmap for other tiger-range nations as well as for big carnivore protection projects worldwide. Through a balance of scientific policy, cultural reverence, and socioeconomic stability, the research offers proof that sustainable coexistence between people and apex predators is possible.

Emphasizing the more general environmental advantages, Dr. Anish Andheria, President of the Wildlife Conservation Trust, says: “The tiger has effectively been an umbrella species, protecting many other large mammals and supporting the way of life of millions by preserving river Catchments.”

India’s strategy revives hope for a biodiverse Anthropocene and shows that preservation and human progresslet can happily go hand in hand.