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It was India that pioneered the use of sanctuaries to save big cats. In 1973, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi became the toast of the conservation community when she launched Project Tiger, setting aside nine wilderness areas for tigers. Now India, with its neighbor Nepal, is leading the way in the next big phase in cat conservation: building links to turn isolated preserves into one continuous habitat. Scientists call this approach landscape conservation, and many believe it's the best hope for saving the world's tiger population, which, despite decades of effort, remains in peril: only 5,000 to 7,000 animals survive in the wild.
Some 200 of these massive cats live in the grasslands and forests along the India-Nepal border at the foot of the Himalayas. The area used to be sparsely populated, but after malaria was eradicated in the 1950s, farmers and loggers moved in. Today it is South Asia's Rice Bowl: there are 3.6 million people, vast paddies and 3.3 million head of livestock in the 19,000-sq.-mi. area. As land was cleared, tiger turf disappeared. Because the animals won't cross what they consider hostile terrain, they became separated into three isolated populations.
To reconnect them, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)--with the Indian and Nepali governments, Save the Tiger and other groups--launched the Terai Arc Landscape Program in 2001. The plan, which is projected to take 50 years to complete, aims to unite 11 reserves into one functioning ecosystem--providing habitat for tigers as well as elephants, rhinos and deer but without displacing farmers or herders. "The future of conservation in Asia is about zoning," observes Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist for the WWF. "We have to figure out how agriculture can coexist with wildlife."
In a paper published in the June issue of Conservation Biology, Dinerstein and his colleagues describe how they used a computer model to identify gaps larger than 3 km in tiger-friendly habitats and work out ways to bridge them. The Terai Arc program gives local people incentives to plant trees or tall thatch grass, which they can harvest and which tigers can use as cover. As forests and grasslands recover, deer, wild pigs and other tiger prey return. "Big cats can handle a modest amount of disturbance," observes WCS's Ginsberg, "but what they really need is cat food."
The program has been a success in southern Nepal's Bagmara Forest, where the WWF and the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation helped local people set up a tree nursery. Tigers returned to the area, and locals are able to harvest timber, fuel wood and grasses according to a strict management plan. Local people also benefit directly from the return of wildlife. They collected about $73,000 last year from tourists who came to see tigers, elephants and rhinos in their forest.