{Note from mods - this post split from here: Hello from aspiring animal novelist!}
Thanks for the welcomes! I've just moved back, and will be more in touch with the Indian scene with time. Glad to find y'all interested in discussing the wildlife story here.
Short answer: cautiously optimistic.
Right now, things aren't terrible in India. I think we're doing a better job than most other Asian and some African countries at comparable development and human density levels. Tigers and rhinos are on the increase; elephant and dhole numbers are up in the main habitat regions; most larger species seem to be faring well. Official figures are disputed but anecdotal evidence from all the major protected areas backs up the idea that we're seeing huge bounce-back from most species in 15-20 critical habitats across the country, especially in the south and central regions.
Problem is that it's been restricted to those 15-20 national parks. When I was more active here a good 10 years ago, the big dilemma was how to deal with the large numbers of humans living and farming inside the protected areas. Ullas Karanth (WCS's main man here and the biggest name in wildlife biology, revolutionized the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve which is our best managed habitat) predicted that India will be able to protect 30-40 "islands" of biodiversity in a sea of humanity, and this has proven to be mostly accurate.
I don't think we'll ever have sprawling wildlife habitats here like there are in the US or Africa, but focus has shifted onto protecting the corridors and buffer zones around and between these oasis parks. These are under unprecedented threat right now because we have a government that's on a de-regulatory rampage when it comes to infrastructure development in rural areas. Lots of rail, road and irrigation projects that are going to further fragment the major wildlife habitats. Worst of all is that they've started de-notifying some existing reserves that lack big-name species but have much of our endemic/small-range turtles, for example. Even in instances when local communities and wildlife advocates have agreed on improved routes or practices, some of these projects still get an un-altered go-ahead due to corruption, big business influence, etc.
Of course, there's also human-animal conflict. For our elephants, this has been particularly bad. I think the stats are something like two humans and one elephant death per week in skirmishes. A lot of this is because of the disturbances to old migration routes by new railway lines, etc.
But I'm optimistic because there are all kinds of efforts underway to develop long-term mitigation measures for habitat fragmentation and human-animal conflict. Literally referring here to tangible engineering, communications and social strategy innovations. Fighting some of the higher-level de-notification and corruption is going to be much tougher...
For that, the answer is 100% tourism. Everyone in the conservation community here will tell you that's #1 on the priority list to get the corridors and buffers protected. Most of our success so far has been because of the massive tourism benefit of protecting our big species which are almost impossible to see elsewhere. It's reached a point where it's almost impossible to relocate some of our overcrowding Asiatic lions to other states because their current home state doesn't want to lose out on the revenue... but that's worth its own thread.
Right now, ecotourism here is a bit of a mess - highly tiger-centric, with insane pressure placed on 4-5 parks, and bad management policies leading to extreme clustering of tourist traffic even inside each park. But local communities have started re-wilding and re-foresting some of the buffer areas as potential wildlife corridors and areas to divert tourist traffic. If we can keep this trend up, there's a good chance of having a similar set-up to Southern Africa (albeit over smaller areas, chosen in a selective, science-based process) where lots of domestic and some international visitation creates enough revenue to make conservation sustainable in the long-term. We're even fortunate that our land ownership structure allows for a greater distribution of this revenue to the grassroots than in, say, South Africa. Community-owned conservancies, basically. I think the Masai have something along these lines in East Africa. Lots of organizations are working on this right now.
So yes, hope that long spiel was useful... I think there's not much risk of extinction for any of our big species in the near future, due to a combination of solid protection within certain habitat areas and negligible poaching when compared to other countries (we have a disturbing spike in rhino, tiger and leopard poaching every now and then, but it's far less common than it used to be). But possibilities for increase are going to depend on the spaces in between those parks.
BTW, it's a whole different story for smaller species. Pangolins, chelonians, etc are getting it bad right now. India was #1 source country for illegal reptile seizures while I was at WCS. Lots of them are outside the big protected areas, in fragile wetland and river ecosystems. Same with vultures... we are still reeling from the Diclofenac-induced crisis that devastated all Indian species. We just managed to get Diclofenac defeated in the courts last year. There's other drugs that are as bad.
Whew, that was long... but thanks - answering your question got me to straighten out my own thoughts on India, and recall all the things I've heard over the last few years. Hopefully, I'll have more up-to-date and specific news in the months to come.
Thanks for the welcomes! I've just moved back, and will be more in touch with the Indian scene with time. Glad to find y'all interested in discussing the wildlife story here.
Short answer: cautiously optimistic.
Right now, things aren't terrible in India. I think we're doing a better job than most other Asian and some African countries at comparable development and human density levels. Tigers and rhinos are on the increase; elephant and dhole numbers are up in the main habitat regions; most larger species seem to be faring well. Official figures are disputed but anecdotal evidence from all the major protected areas backs up the idea that we're seeing huge bounce-back from most species in 15-20 critical habitats across the country, especially in the south and central regions.
Problem is that it's been restricted to those 15-20 national parks. When I was more active here a good 10 years ago, the big dilemma was how to deal with the large numbers of humans living and farming inside the protected areas. Ullas Karanth (WCS's main man here and the biggest name in wildlife biology, revolutionized the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve which is our best managed habitat) predicted that India will be able to protect 30-40 "islands" of biodiversity in a sea of humanity, and this has proven to be mostly accurate.
I don't think we'll ever have sprawling wildlife habitats here like there are in the US or Africa, but focus has shifted onto protecting the corridors and buffer zones around and between these oasis parks. These are under unprecedented threat right now because we have a government that's on a de-regulatory rampage when it comes to infrastructure development in rural areas. Lots of rail, road and irrigation projects that are going to further fragment the major wildlife habitats. Worst of all is that they've started de-notifying some existing reserves that lack big-name species but have much of our endemic/small-range turtles, for example. Even in instances when local communities and wildlife advocates have agreed on improved routes or practices, some of these projects still get an un-altered go-ahead due to corruption, big business influence, etc.
Of course, there's also human-animal conflict. For our elephants, this has been particularly bad. I think the stats are something like two humans and one elephant death per week in skirmishes. A lot of this is because of the disturbances to old migration routes by new railway lines, etc.
But I'm optimistic because there are all kinds of efforts underway to develop long-term mitigation measures for habitat fragmentation and human-animal conflict. Literally referring here to tangible engineering, communications and social strategy innovations. Fighting some of the higher-level de-notification and corruption is going to be much tougher...
For that, the answer is 100% tourism. Everyone in the conservation community here will tell you that's #1 on the priority list to get the corridors and buffers protected. Most of our success so far has been because of the massive tourism benefit of protecting our big species which are almost impossible to see elsewhere. It's reached a point where it's almost impossible to relocate some of our overcrowding Asiatic lions to other states because their current home state doesn't want to lose out on the revenue... but that's worth its own thread.
Right now, ecotourism here is a bit of a mess - highly tiger-centric, with insane pressure placed on 4-5 parks, and bad management policies leading to extreme clustering of tourist traffic even inside each park. But local communities have started re-wilding and re-foresting some of the buffer areas as potential wildlife corridors and areas to divert tourist traffic. If we can keep this trend up, there's a good chance of having a similar set-up to Southern Africa (albeit over smaller areas, chosen in a selective, science-based process) where lots of domestic and some international visitation creates enough revenue to make conservation sustainable in the long-term. We're even fortunate that our land ownership structure allows for a greater distribution of this revenue to the grassroots than in, say, South Africa. Community-owned conservancies, basically. I think the Masai have something along these lines in East Africa. Lots of organizations are working on this right now.
So yes, hope that long spiel was useful... I think there's not much risk of extinction for any of our big species in the near future, due to a combination of solid protection within certain habitat areas and negligible poaching when compared to other countries (we have a disturbing spike in rhino, tiger and leopard poaching every now and then, but it's far less common than it used to be). But possibilities for increase are going to depend on the spaces in between those parks.
BTW, it's a whole different story for smaller species. Pangolins, chelonians, etc are getting it bad right now. India was #1 source country for illegal reptile seizures while I was at WCS. Lots of them are outside the big protected areas, in fragile wetland and river ecosystems. Same with vultures... we are still reeling from the Diclofenac-induced crisis that devastated all Indian species. We just managed to get Diclofenac defeated in the courts last year. There's other drugs that are as bad.
Whew, that was long... but thanks - answering your question got me to straighten out my own thoughts on India, and recall all the things I've heard over the last few years. Hopefully, I'll have more up-to-date and specific news in the months to come.
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