Secret to India’s tiger comeback: Big cats successfully coexist with 60 million people, finds study

The paper was authored by senior wildlife scientist Yadvendradev V Jhala and co-authored by Ninad Mungi, Assistant Prof, Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere, Aarhus University, Denmark, Rajesh Gopal, former head of Project Tiger, and senior wildlife scientist Qamar Qureshi.

The researchers used tiger population estimation datasets from the four estimation cycles between 2006 to 2018 to evaluate tiger occupancy, socio-ecological characteristics of local extinctions, and colonisation and persistence of tigers in India.

Amid polarising views on creating people-free spaces versus co-existence in the same spaces, data showed that both complement each other in the conservation of the big cat.

“A large proportion of tiger-occupied habitats (45%) was shared with about 60 million people in India. This co-occurrence with people coincides with relatively economically prosperous areas, many of which harness substantial financial benefits from tiger-related tourism as well as proactive government-sponsored schemes for compensating the loss caused by conflict,” the research stated.

The study found that 25 per cent of the tigers’ occupied habitats were in core areas of tiger reserves, while buffer areas of tiger reserves or wildlife sanctuaries and tiger corridors, which help tigers migrate between two forested patches, accounted for the remaining 20 per cent and 10 per cent of habitats, respectively.

The research characterised people-free spaces as ‘land-sparing’ and shared spaces as ‘land-sharing.’  The human-free areas sustained 85 per cent of the viable breeding population of tigers, known as the source population. This source population of tigers disperses outside tiger reserves and sanctuaries into multi-use forests and spaces, where they share spaces with humans, the study said.

“It is essential to have spared lands – free of humans – where tigers can breed and repopulate multi-use forests. If you do not have spared lands, you cannot have shared lands, these are source and sink population areas,” Jhala, the lead author, told The Indian Express.

He added, “Because of culture and religion we have large co-existence, but they must be supplemented with economic co-benefits. Spaces which are shared with tigers can benefit through eco-tourism, incentivised voluntary relocation, by moving out of core and thirdly, gate receipts should be shared with buffer zone communities, this creates incentives for living with tigers.”

Despite India’s success, several challenges remain. Key habitats in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand, covering approximately 1,57,000 sq km, remain devoid of tigers, highlighting opportunities for focused recovery efforts. Strategies such as socio-economic upliftment of forest-dwelling communities, prey and tiger reintroduction programmes, and habitat restoration, are essential for these regions.

In fact, the research also said that a low density of humans did not necessarily mean tigers thrived in those areas. This was particularly the case in central-eastern India across Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand, where armed insurgencies, poverty-driven competition for forest resources, mining, and infrastructure hampered tigers.

The issue of creating people-free or ‘inviolate’ spaces in tiger reserves has often seen friction between the forest departments and communities living inside forests. Most recently, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs directed state tribal departments to follow provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, and Wildlife Protection Act, 2006, before carrying out relocations from tiger reserves. The Centre wrote to states after community representations from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh alleged violation of these laws during relocation attempts.

India is home to 75 per cent of the world’s tiger population with 3,682 tigers as per 2022 population estimation released in 2023. At the time, there were 53 reserves spread across 75,796 sq km. Most of the tigers were concentrated in Shivalik Hills and Gangetic Plains, the Central Indian and Eastern Ghats landscape which spans till Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, and the Western Ghats.