by Susan Lumpkin, GTI Consultant

The barking alarm calls of sambar and spotted deer echoed across the grassland from the forested hillside in the distance. On cue, domestic elephants toting camera-laden tourists lumbered toward the tree-covered banks of the river. The agitation of the deer meant that a tiger lurked in the jungle, well camouflaged among the brush but there, somewhere. All we could do now was wait and wonder. Would the tiger settle down for a mid-morning snooze or emerge into the open—and our view—on some mission or another?

Almost as soon as these thoughts formed, a sharp-eyed tiger watcher pointed an arm and hissed, “Tiger!” There on the far bank, a dark orange shape entering the river resolved into a tiger. If there was any fear that our eyes deceived us, it was relieved by the elephants’ palpable disquiet in the presence of a tiger even 100 meters away.

As the tiger crossed the shallow river, a sambar standing in the open on a small island in its path stood its ground. As if taunting the predator, the deer barked and stomped its foot, a message the tiger could hear loud and clear: I know where you are and so forget about trying to make me a morning meal. A tiger depends on stealthily approaching its prey then rushing to bring the unwary creature down. Chasing a fully alert sambar would be a waste of energy.

So the tiger strolled through the trees on the sambar’s island and emerged on the other side, crossed another stretch of river to an open bank, took a roll in a pile of elephant dung, then ambled into the forest and out of view. Now the tourists could breathe again and bask in the thrill of having witnessed one of nature’s most fantastic sights: a wild tiger in all its might and glory charging the atmosphere with a frisson of fear and, among its human watchers, a sort of longing to be so powerful and free, to so fully command a landscape and all its inhabitants.

The site of this charged human-tiger encounter was Corbett Tiger Reserve in the state of Uttarakhand in northern India. Coincidentally, it was April 1—Fool’s Day in many cultures—but 37 years earlier, on April 1, 1973, India made a far from foolish move when it launched its landmark Project Tiger and declared Corbett the first of what are now 39 tiger reserves designed to protect the endangered carnivores. Today, Corbett remains one of the world’s premier protected areas for wild tigers, with an estimated 200 or so adult tigers in its about 1,318 km2 area of grasslands and hilly forests.

Among the exhilarated tourists that day was a group of people with a particular interest in what was happening in this tiger bastion, all affiliated in one way or another with the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), including GTI Program Director Keshav Varma, Hart Schafer, Director of Strategy and Operations, Sustainable Development Network, World Bank, World Bank Institute’s Thematic Learning Director Bruno Laporte, GTI Program Coordinator Andrey Kushlin, and GTI Advisor John Seidensticker of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

Accompanied by Uttarakhand Chief Wildlife Warden Srikant Chandola and Brijendra Singh, a senior member of India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority and Honorary Warden of the park, we were there to see firsthand the best practices employed in this reserve as well as to better understand the continuing challenges of protecting tigers and other wildlife in the face of an ever-growing human footprint and inexorable pressure to place economic development ahead of all other priorities. Lessons learned here could be applied in other protected areas in India and in the rest of the tiger range in Asia as the Global Tiger Recovery Program is implemented over the next 12 years. This was also an opportunity to begin GTI engagement at the front lines on the ground, where the real hard work of tiger conservation is being done.

On the Front Lines

Thus, one stop on the four-day mission was at the Kalagarh Training Centre at the edge of the park. At this small facility, about 60 forest guards per year spend six months learning the basics of their job, which range from tracking wildlife to tackling poachers. This program is necessary but not sufficient to meet the needs of the entire state, according to its director. He would like to expand the capacity for trainees and even offer advanced or refresher training, which is currently not available. A high priority of most TRCs in the GTRP is capacity building for front line staff such as forest guards and rangers and Kalagarh seems a likely spot for scaling up. The director welcomed support and encouragement from the GTI and the World Bank.

The current batch of trainees spoke about some of the challenges they face, which include long times away from their families and working under difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions. We later saw a typical cabin occupied by a forest guard, a small wooden structure best described as a room and a half and could only boast of minimal creature comforts. Keshav Varma expressed our appreciation for the critical work they do, which is not generally accorded the recognition it deserves. He also noted the importance of ensuring that guards and rangers get the modern equipment and technology they need to counter increasingly sophisticated poachers.

The GTI has brought issues of capacity building to the forefront, in India and other TRCs, including Thailand. Thailand, for instance, is launching a Regional Tiger Conservation and Research Center at Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, where the focus will be on training front line protected area staff in smart patrolling and MIST. In Rajasthan, India, Hart Schafer, Bruno Laporte, Keshav Varma, and John Seidensticker met with officials to discuss creating a Centre for Training and Research on Endangered Species, in cooperation with the GTI, the World Bank Institute, the Smithsonian, and others.

Best Practices and Critical Challenges

Corbett exemplifies best practices in zoning for tiger conservation. The core area of 520 km2 (the original Corbett National Park) is largely inviolate, with access restricted to reserve staff and officials. Another nearly 800 km2 is buffer zone, where mixed use, including tourism, is permitted. Corbett is one of India’s most visited protected areas, hosting some 200,000 tourists per year. Tourism in protected areas is both a blessing and a bane. On the plus side, tourism provides economic incentives for conservation—and is particularly valuable if local communities benefit. Tourism also helps create constituencies for wildlife—people who have seen a tiger or a herd of elephants in the wild are likely to support saving these natural wonders. On the down side, catering to tourists may distract park officials from their core job of protection, facilities for tourists crowd reserve boundaries, and too many tourists chasing after a chance to glimpse of a tiger or leopard can be disturbing to the animals. We were happy to note that the elephant and jeep drivers of our gaggle of tourists maintained a considerable distance away from the tiger we watched and, indeed, he seemed oblivious to our clicking cameras.

Unlike many protected areas, Corbett tiger reserve contains no villages but its borders are lined with them—some 90-plus villages that are home to more than 62,000 people and about 45,000 head of livestock. Inevitably, living in such close quarters, tigers and people come into conflict. Tigers take livestock and economic losses often lead to villagers poisoning the offending cat. More serious is the problem of tigers mauling or killing people. Since December of last year, seven people were killed by tigers on the periphery of the reserve. Most protected areas for tigers, in India and across the range, are amid large human populations so as tiger numbers increase, conflict is likely to increase too—a perverse consequence of successful protection.

India is gradually conducting voluntary, fairly compensated relocations of villages and recently money was allocated to move some families from a village with a high level of conflict. But this is a slow process. In the meantime, and where village relocation is not an option, timely response to conflict situations and compensation for human and livestock losses has been shown to be essential. Because getting compensation from the government can be a lengthy process, the Corbett Foundation, a local NGO, offers interim financial relief to victims.

As we drove through the reserve, we saw large patches of habitat brightened by multi-colored flowers of lantana, which come in shades of pink, orange, yellow, red, blue. But this brightness conceals a dark side: lantana is an exotic invasive weed, introduced as an ornamental shrub and now a threat to wildlife habitats throughout South Asia. Among other things, lantana crowds out plants that provide forage for herbivores, such as the deer tigers prey on, while providing only inedible toxic leaves in return. In other large patches, the only sign of lantana’s hold on the land was piles of dried out brush amid sprouting forbs and grasses. Mr. Chandola explained that Corbett’s management has embarked on a long-term process of removing lantana—each bush laboriously dug up by hand—and replanting the area with a mix of about 50 native plant species to prevent lantana from re-gaining a foothold.

It is considered beyond dispute that the single most important factor affecting the success of tiger conservation in protected areas is excellent leadership and management. Corbett has been fortunate to have a history of strong leaders. Earlier, at an international tiger conference in New Delhi, Corbett Field Director Ranjan Mishra talked about his management program, which stresses good governance, transparency, accountability, and participation.

Capacity building and building a community of practice among protected area directors and managers, a goal of the GTRP, will help ensure that excellence is a hallmark of tiger reserves across the range.

Beyond Tigers

Corbett Tiger Reserves offers proof of the tiger’s role as an umbrella for other wildlife. We saw a herd of Asian elephants about 30 strong, including calves of assorted ages, and solitary male tuskers waiting for a chance to mate. Tiger prey, sambar and wild pigs in particular, were much in evidence although the two are related: if there were not abundant sambar and pigs, there would not be abundant tigers. Legions of graceful spotted deer rustled through the tall grass, sounding like the wind. Troops of acrobatic langurs watched us with as much curiosity as we watched them. Peacocks performed fan dances as if cued by Mother Nature to entertain us. Vultures and storks soared overhead, while erratic flocks of parakeets flapped into view and as quickly flapped out. In all, the park boasts more than 50 species of mammals, nearly 600 birds, and about 25 reptiles, including endangered gharials and more common mugger crocodiles.

Corbett is also a critical anchor of the larger Terai Arc Landscape. This landscape is a 1,000 km belt of habitat at the base of the Himalayas that stretches nearly unbroken from Rajaji National Park to the east, through Corbett, and west to Chitwan National Park and Parsa Wildlife Reserve in Nepal. By maintaining the habitat linkages among the belt’s 14 protected areas and restoring the broken connections as corridors, tigers can live as a single population where dispersal between refuges can maintain their genetic and ecological integrity.

And not only tigers. Asian elephants, greater one-horned rhinos, sloth bears, and more are part of the fabric of this rich landscape. According to both Mr. Chandola and Mr. Singh, the development of a forest area known as the Landsdowne division as a wildlife corridor would maintain the linkage between Rajaji and Corbett as well as reduce human-wildlife conflict in the area.

Both Mr. Chandola and Mr. Singh remain concerned about the future of the Corbett reserve, its tigers, and its elephants. While India’s central government champions conservation and funds it fairly generously, state governments, which have direct responsibility for managing and maintaining protected areas are typically less supportive and, according to our hosts, Uttarakhand is no exception. They believe, however, that the renewed focus on tiger conservation resulting from the Global Tiger Initiative and the Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg, as well as the attention of international organizations such as the World Bank, will help to change this.

However, as urbanization and infrastructure development continue at an exponential rate, pressures to convert remaining wildlife habitat, especially outside of protected areas, will only increase. Ramnagar, gateway to the park, is a bustling town sure to grow in the years ahead. Thus it is good news that India has announced a plan to conduct a study of the economic value of its biodiversity and ecosystem services of natural areas as a way of demonstrating, in terms the development sector understands, that natural capital is critical to sustainable development.

Seeing a wild tiger stride proudly across the landscape seems almost otherworldly. The spectacle has a mirage-like aura, evoking the sense that if you look away, even for a second, it might disappear. As metaphor, the experience is apt. If there is any unchanging fact about tiger conservation, it is that only constant and eternal vigilance will prevent these great cats from vanishing.