Research Article: Ranganathan, J., Chan, K. M., Karanth, K. U., & Smith, J. L. D. (2008). Where can tigers persist in the future? A landscape-scale, density-based population model for the Indian subcontinent. Biological Conservation, 141(1), 67-77.
Blog Author: Yashendu Chinmayee Joshi
Key Takeaways:
- The Indian subcontinent could potentially hold 3500 to 6500 tigers in up to 150 protected areas.
- Over 90% of the potential tiger population is concentrated in just three habitat types—alluvial grasslands and subtropical moist deciduous forests, tropical dry forests, and tropical moist deciduous forests.
- Conservation should prioritize these specific ecosystems rather than treating all Protected Areas equally.
- By improving management in areas with the highest potential for tiger populations, conservation efforts can yield better results without expanding protected areas.
Protecting tigers remains one of the most complex and long-standing conservation challenges of our time, especially in the Indian subcontinent, home to the majority of the world’s remaining wild tigers. This region also has some of the highest human population densities globally, creating intense pressure on the landscapes and tiger conservation.
Tiger conservation in such a context faces multiple threats: increasing negative interactions with humans, poaching, prey depletion, habitat fragmentation, and a range of political and governance problems. Traditional approaches like fortress conservation—where people are excluded from protected areas and a greater divide is created between humans and nature—can often do more harm than good, leading to friction with local communities and sometimes even undermining conservation goals. This is why it’s critical to ask: How can we better manage our existing national parks and tiger reserves to support tiger populations, without relying solely on creating new protected areas?
A study by Ranganathan et al. offers valuable insights into this question. This research assesses the capacity of existing protected areas (PAs) across the Indian subcontinent to support tiger populations. By examining the types of vegetation within these areas and correlating them with known tiger densities, the authors provide realistic population targets for each PA. Their analysis reveals that over 90% of the estimated potential tiger population is concentrated in just three types of habitats: 1)Alluvial grasslands and subtropical moist deciduous forests, 2) Tropical dry forests, and 3) Tropical moist deciduous forests.
This research informs us about the importance of focusing conservation efforts not equally across all protected areas, but rather strategically, by prioritizing those with the greatest potential to support tiger populations. Importantly, the study emphasizes the role of improved management over expansion. According to this research, protected areas with higher population targets should receive more intensive conservation focus, while those with lower targets could benefit from attention to surrounding buffer zones. The study also shows that considerable gains in tiger numbers can be made by optimizing how existing parks are managed, without creating new ones.
In conclusion, the authors argue for a more targeted approach to tiger conservation. Rather than investing limited resources into expanding protected areas, conservationists and policymakers could achieve better results by improving management strategies in the landscapes we already have. This includes restoring prey populations, minimizing negative interactions with humans, and enhancing connectivity between key habitats.
You can access the original article here.
Key Words: Panthera tigris, Reserve design, Conservation planning, Tiger conservation landscape
