Indian Tiger Reserves: Tribals Get Out, Tourists Welcome

This report is written by Suhas Chakma of Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy Program (IPLP), University of Arizona. Published in July 2024, the report examines the conflict between tiger conservation programmes and rights of indigenous tribes in India. It details the legislative and administrative measures that have led to forced eviction of tribal communities from their ancestral lands to create tiger reserves. The report highlights human rights violations and lack of rehabilitation of displaced tribal communities and questions the sustainability of such conservation policies.'Project Tiger’, launched by Government of India in the year 1973, created inviolate areas for tiger conservation – many of which were indigenous to tribal communities. The report notes that 2,54,794 persons from across 50 tiger reserves or about 5,000 persons per reserve were identified for relocation from 1973 to 2021. Post-2021, at least 2,90,000 persons from six tiger reserves or 48,333 persons per tiger reserve have been identified for relocation.This 47-page document comprise five sections: Executive Summary: 967% increase in displacement from per Tiger Reserve post 2021 (Section 1); Patterns of human rights violations associated with tiger reserves (Section 2); CAG’s Indictment of the Project Tiger (Section 3); The future ahead: Unregulated tourism and other development projects inside Tiger Reserves (Section 4); Postscript: Protected areas are actually open jails (Section 5).