The need for a new conservation agenda focusing on coexistence between tigers and local communities. It emphasizes the importance of investing in the lands surrounding tiger reserves, providing benefits to local communities, and ensuring their participation in conservation efforts. The author stresses the need to shift away from the traditional approach of exclusion and fortification of tiger reserves, leading to conflict between animals and local communities.
To reinvent tiger conservation, there must be a recognition that conservation efforts must be inclusive and consider the needs and perspectives of local communities. Policies must be designed to benefit communities and enable them to be partners in conservation efforts. This could involve initiatives to compensate farmers for crop damage caused by animals, promoting sustainable agriculture practices that coexist with wildlife, and investing in rural infrastructure and livelihoods.
Another critical aspect of reinventing tiger conservation is to focus on sustainable wildlife tourism that benefits both the tigers and local communities. This could include developing homestead tourism owned and operated by the local communities, promoting ecotourism that helps local economies, and providing job opportunities to the local community members in conservation-related activities.
Reinventing tiger conservation requires a fundamental shift in how we approach conservation efforts. It requires us to embrace the idea of coexistence between humans and wildlife and to design policies and practices that enable this coexistence. Only by doing so can we ensure the long-term survival of tigers and the conservation of the habitats that sustain them.
