Indian tigers increase their range by 3,000 sq km every year, but poverty and armed conflict prevent their growth in the east: Study

New Delhi: Even though tigers increased their range by nearly 3,000 sq km annually over the past two decades, habitats in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha are devoid of the big cats largely due to poverty and armed conflicts, Indian biologists reported on Thursday, providing a detailed account of how socio-economic and political stability aid in tiger conservation.

The findings show that tigers share 45 per cent of their current territory with nearly 60 million people in India, debunking a myth that human density and large carnivores don’t mix.

“It’s not human density, but what matters is the attitude of people. Sparing land for tigers enabled land sharing, provided that socioeconomic prosperity and political stability prevailed,” Y V Jhala, corresponding author of the study and a former senior scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India told DH.

However, regions affected by high poverty, armed conflict, and habitat loss saw continued absence of tigers and localised extinctions, underscoring the importance of socioeconomic and political factors in ensuring a successful recovery.

Habitats that were devoid of tigers (157,527 sq km) were predominantly spread across Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand. These are among the poorest districts in India with high incidences of bushmeat consumption, often with the use of traps and snares that are usually indiscriminate in killing prey and predators.

Biodiversity recovery in districts with such poor economic conditions needs investments in socioeconomic upliftment of communities, much more so than in other areas, Jhala and his colleagues from WII and National Tiger Conservation Authority reported in Science. Their research paper is on the cover page of the journal.

The wildlife biologists argued that recovery of tigers in 10,000 sq km areas spreading over Guru Ghasidas, Palamau, Udanti-Sitanadi, Similipal, Satkosia, and Indravati tiger reserves is possible through reintroduction or supplementation, but socio-economic factors were to be addressed first to enhance the prey base in the jungles.

Moreover, there are problems of armed conflict in these forests that are hotbeds of Naxal activities. Tiger reserves affected by the Naxal activities are in Chhattisgarh (Indravati, Achanakmar, and Udanti-Sitanadi) and Jharkhand (Palamau).

Several tiger habitats in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and eastern parts of Maharashtra have been experiencing armed insurgencies and it is in these habitats that tiger occupancy was low and extinction probability high.

But there are also a few parks where armed conflict has been recently controlled leading to a recovery (Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam, Amrabad, and Similipal).

Jhala said armed conflicts and political instability led to wildlife declines as it enhanced poaching as militants exploited wildlife products for arms, turning lawless regions into poaching havens.

Within India, Manas National Park lost its greater one-horned rhinoceros during the politico-ethnic conflict while Nepal’s rhinoceros population was decimated during the period of civil unrest.

“Therefore, it is not surprising to see tigers and their prey either absent or extirpated from regions with armed conflict,” the researchers noted.

India, despite having the world’s highest human population density and only 18 per cent of the global tiger habitat, harbours over 75 per cent of the global tiger population (over 3600 tigers).