Factors Influencing People's Response Toward Tiger Translocation in Satkosia Tiger Reserve, Eastern India

Abstract

Local communities are an important stakeholder in any carnivore translocation programme and therefore, their acceptance of the translocation and support are essential to ensure its viability. Recent tiger augmentation efforts in Satkosia Tiger Reserve, India received mixed responses from the local communities, causing a stalemate in its progress. As a part of the adaptive management strategy, it was required to assess the concerns and issues to provide a practical solution. Hence, we analyzed the attitude of the people toward conservation in general and tiger specifically. We used structured questionnaire surveys and interviewed 1,932 households from 43 villages located in and around the reserve. We tested the influence of several variables representing four categories- (1) socio-economic, (2) ecosystem values and dependence, (3) relationship with the forest department and (4) losses and fear, on the attitude toward tiger conservation. The villages were clustered based on the responses received under these categories. While conserving forest was important to 91% of respondents, 71% of respondents supported wildlife conservation and only 35% felt important to conserve tiger. The logistic binary regression predicted that at the household level attitude toward tiger conservation is influenced positively by economic well-being, sense of forest ecosystem services, resource dependence and negatively influenced by restrictions from the forest department, and previous experience of loss due to wildlife. At the village level, literacy, resource dependence, access to clean cooking fuel and cooperation from the forest department predicted a positive attitude toward tiger conservation. Restriction from the forest department, fear for livestock, and experience of losses due to wildlife had a negative influence on attitude. We recommend that the villages in the landscape are prioritized based on their needs and accordingly, specific interventions are made to address their concerns. Future augmentation programme must give importance to intangible factors such as fear and perceived restrictions and opt for the involvement of the local community in the decision-making process.

Topcats and underdogs: intraguild interactions among three apex carnivores across Asia's forestscapes

“…For instance, tigers have been reintroduced to 'rewild' Protected Areas [e.g. Satkosia and Panna Tiger Reserves in India (Vasudeva et al, 2021;Malviya, Kalyanasundaram & Krishnamurthy, 2022)], and following human/livestock depredation events leopards have frequently been translocated from human-use areas to forest habitats (Athreya et al, 2011(Athreya et al, , 2015. There are plans to reintroduce dholes into Protected Areas in India where they have recently gone extinct (Jhala et al, 2021).…”

Conservation Prioritization in a Tiger Landscape: Is Umbrella Species Enough?

“…It requires a balanced approach between ecological, social, and economic aspects of the landscape. Biodiversity conservation, especially for large carnivores, is affected by the nature of human-wildlife relationships (e.g., traditional values) and socioeconomics of the landscape [112][113][114][115]. These relationships and people's perception toward wildlife and conservation are often driven by factors that vary with scale (e.g., at household and village level) but also across and between landscapes [112,113,116,117].…”

“…Biodiversity conservation, especially for large carnivores, is affected by the nature of human-wildlife relationships (e.g., traditional values) and socioeconomics of the landscape [112][113][114][115]. These relationships and people's perception toward wildlife and conservation are often driven by factors that vary with scale (e.g., at household and village level) but also across and between landscapes [112,113,116,117]. Therefore, more efforts are required to understand these relationships and integrate them into planning at the local scale [114].…”

Restoring Asia’s roar: Opportunities for tiger recovery across the historic range

“…Strong legislative frameworks and political support for law enforcement, combined with increasing social tolerance for carnivores and rural depopulation, were significant drivers of this range expansion across Europe (Martıńez-Abraıń et al, 2020;Cimatti et al, 2021). Despite their appeal to many people, often distant from carnivore occupied landscapes, the conservation and recovery of large carnivores can be controversial (Hiroyasu et al, 2019;Manfredo et al, 2021;Vasudeva et al, 2021). Large carnivores can compete with people for space and resources.…”