India’s tiger population bounces back
Project Tiger was launched in the 1970s, an ambitious project aimed at reviving India's tiger population, which had fallen dramatically. The conservation initiative has helped boost tiger numbers in Madhya Pradesh, known as the 'tiger state'.
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00:00 It's 6 o'clock in the morning in the Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh.
00:06 The big cats are out there somewhere, here in this untamed wilderness.
00:16 Anish Andheria is a nature conservationist.
00:20 No one knows the tigers as well as he does.
00:24 He immediately spots their tracks.
00:27 They tend to be close to streams and ponds.
00:30 So tigers are water babies.
00:34 You seldom see them far away from perennial waters.
00:38 And so they are really an indicator of the health of the forest.
00:41 If the forest is degraded, you will not have perennial water bodies.
00:46 The streams will dry out and therefore you won't have a high density prey and therefore
00:51 you don't have tigers.
00:53 A large part of the tiger's habitat has been lost due to human activity.
00:58 Three quarters of the world's wild tigers still live in India.
01:02 But their population has drastically decreased, from more than 50,000 in the 19th century
01:09 to less than 300 in the 1970s.
01:16 That's when the government stepped in and launched Project Tiger, setting up protected
01:21 areas.
01:25 Mostly the core of all tiger reserves are either sanctuaries or national parks.
01:29 So by law, you can't have human disturbance there.
01:35 In the initial stages, people were just lifted and moved.
01:40 And at that point, you know, there was violation in human rights and all that.
01:46 That's early, in the 70s and 80s.
01:49 Things look very different today.
01:51 The indigenous communities can remain in the forests where their ancestors once lived.
01:57 And they play an important role in tiger conservation efforts.
02:01 Shishupal Enwati belongs to the Gond tribe and lives in a village in the reserve.
02:07 He's been working for the Forestry Authority since 2006 and earns around Rs 12,000 a month,
02:14 the equivalent of around 130 euros.
02:18 His job is to patrol the entire area and educate locals about tigers and their habitat.
02:28 In the past, the villagers didn't know any better and put up electric fences to keep
02:31 out sambar deer and other animals.
02:34 But then tigers would get trapped in them.
02:36 There were bad accidents.
02:37 Sometimes they would even put traps out or poison the water bodies.
02:40 They even hunted the tigers.
02:43 But since I've been working here, there have been fewer incidents.
02:46 I'm in the jungle every day and I've seen tiger numbers go up.
02:55 The local communities have always been dependent on the forest and what grows in it.
03:00 Banning them from it would mean cutting them off from their livelihood.
03:05 In the 1990s, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in Madhya Pradesh
03:10 set up so-called Eco-Development Committees or EDCs.
03:15 The goal was to integrate locals into wildlife conservation projects, which would also help
03:21 supply them with an income.
03:27 In Pains Tiger Reserve, I have 130 EDCs.
03:30 And whatever tourism revenue we generate in a year, one third goes to these communities.
03:36 They also have been employed in most of the activities which we carry out inside.
03:41 So some of them are like permanent workers with us and many of them, a huge number of
03:47 them do this casually.
03:50 Wildlife tourism in Madhya Pradesh makes a significant contribution to the economy.
03:55 Shantabai has benefited from its growth.
03:58 With the help of funding from the Forest Department, she set up a small canteen.
04:04 Many locals who used to fear the tigers now feel grateful to them.
04:13 Every year we give tigers an offering of chicken and coconuts.
04:17 We worship them and we keep a rock as a symbol and worship it.
04:20 For the Adivasi, the tiger is a god.
04:23 And now they even provide us with livelihood.
04:25 If it weren't for people coming here from all over the world to see them, we wouldn't
04:29 have an income.
04:35 The forestry officers are out on patrol every day, tracking the tigers' routes.
04:40 They use wildlife cameras to record and document their movements.
04:45 Again and again, they observe that roads are a huge problem, slicing directly through the
04:50 animal's habitat.
04:55 We have seen that females that lived on the other side seldom ever moved on this side.
05:01 Males would cross once in a while, but largely these populations were segregated.
05:05 So this is how the corridors get fragmented.
05:09 Once fragmentation happens, there is inbreeding on both sides.
05:12 It can escalate conflict because if animal movement stops on one side and if the prey
05:18 population on the other side goes down because there is no movement, then tigers will go
05:24 and start hunting cattle.
05:26 That will increase conflict.
05:29 Underpasses like these protect the animals' natural routes.
05:34 There are 23 of them in Madhya Pradesh alone, and they are urgently needed.
05:39 A third of India's most important tiger corridors run through the state, but the conservation
05:45 efforts benefit other species too.
05:49 It's not that tigers are more important than the birds or the monkeys or a termite, but
05:55 tigers become a pivot around which all the conservation efforts can be focused.
06:01 So if you want to protect them, you will have to protect large areas with ample of water.
06:08 And if you do that, automatically you will be able to protect so many different species.
06:15 Project Tiger was founded in Madhya Pradesh 50 years ago.
06:19 Thanks to its hard work, tiger numbers have recovered.
06:23 There are now over 3,000 of them in India.
06:27 (birds chirping)
06:29 [BLANK_AUDIO]