The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
Fostering local community tolerance for endangered carnivores, such as tigers (Panthera tigris), is a core component of many conservation strategies. Identification of antecedents of tolerance will facilitate the development of effective tolerance-building conservation action and secure local community support for, and involvement in, conservation initiatives. We use a stated preference …
Rarely human communities coexist in harmony with large predators. Most often communities suffer due to predation on their stock while large carnivores suffer losses and at times extirpation due to retaliation. We examine the mechanisms permitting the coexistence of Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) and pastoral communities (Maldharis) in the …
Conservation can be achieved through the judicious and context-specifi c use of protectionist and inclusionary approaches either in seclusion or conjunction. A response to Nitin Rai, "Green Grabbing in the Name of the Tiger" (EPW, 20 October 2012).
Nature-based tourism is well recognised as a tool that can be used for neoliberal conservation. Proponents argue that such tourism can provide revenue for conservation activities, and income generating opportunities and other benefits for local people living at the destination. Private-Community Partnerships (PCPs) are a particular form of hybrid intervention …
In early 2010, after 27 years of recovery effort, the orange-bellied parrot (OBP; Neophema chrysogaster) was expected to be extinct in the wild within a few years. Shortly before the imminent wild extinction became evident, we surveyed landholders (114 responses of 783 surveys delivered) in part of the main non-breeding …
With decisions like the Supreme Court's interim order banning tourism inside tiger sanctuaries becoming inevitable in the face of increasing political and executive resistance to expansion of protected nature reserves on public land, the issue of tiger tourism calls for a pragmatic approach that can resolve contradictions between the burgeoning …
Many wildlife species face imminent extinction because of human impacts, and therefore, a prevailing belief is that some wildlife species, particularly large carnivores and ungulates, cannot coexist with people at fine spatial scales (i.e., cannot regularly use the exact same point locations). This belief provides rationale for various conservation programs, …
Community-based conservation reverses top-down, centre driven conservation by focusing on the people who bear the costs of conservation. In the broadest sense then, community-based conservation includes natural resource or biodiversity protection by, for, and with local communities. Nepal has joined hands with international communities and embarked on the modern era …
A two-day workshop, titled “Fishery-dependent Livelihoods, Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity: The Case of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas in India”, was held in New Delhi during 1-2 March 2012. The workshop was a follow-up to the one held in Chennai in 2009, which was titled “Social Dimensions of …
People of Orissa have been involved in the protection of some unique and endangered wildlife for their own interest or for the environmental sustainability. Rugudipalli is one of the community based conserved areas of Orissa where the arrival of Asian Open Bill Storks is believed to coincide exactly with the …
Recent research on leopard behaviour shows capturing the problem animals and releasing them elsewhere only shifts the locale of the people-animal conflict. At first glance Akole taluka in Ahmednagar district seems like any other taluka in western Maharashtra’s sugarcane belt. It seems unlikely, even unexpected, yet in Akole people, their …
Recent research on leopard behaviour shows capturing the problem animals and releasing them elsewhere only shifts the locale of the people-animal conflict. At first glance Akole taluka in Ahmednagar district seems like any other taluka in western Maharashtra’s sugarcane belt. It has densely populated and chaotic settlements, virtually no forest …
Over the last several millennia, people have made steady inroads into the elephants’ natural habitat through agriculture and settlements along river valleys. With their habitats now fragmented, degraded and compressed, these mega-herbivores spill into human settlements thereby setting the stage for a highly volatile combat.
Based on our studies in Norway and India, and the rapidly expanding scientific literature in this field, it is safe to say that human-wildlife conflicts are a universal state of affairs. This is a serious issue because it represents a long term threat to the persistence of wildlife as well …
How is it possible for large carnivorous cats to live with humans in a rural area? Asking this big question are Vidya Athreya, a wildlife biologist and Sunetro Ghosal, a social scientist.
As we hurtle headlong into the twenty-first century creating technologies, breathing development, and grabbing land and resources, most of us will readily acknowledge that we may be harming the natural world by our actions and that we must do what we can to correct this. Judging from the enthusiastic response …
The struggle to protect the rapidly vanishing tiger is getting murkier by the day. Up to 100,000 families are slated for displacement, ostensibly to secure India’s tiger habitats. Unfortunately, most of the relocation taking place violates the law and may end up creating more conflicts that cause the tiger’s decline.
The struggle to protect the rapidly vanishing tiger is getting murkier by the day. Up to 100,000 families are slated for displacement, ostensibly to secure India’s tiger habitats. Unfortunately, most of the relocation taking place violates the law and may end up creating more conflicts that cause the tiger’s decline. …
