A Computational Approach for Designing Tiger Corridors in India
Saurabh Shanu,Sudeepto Bhattacharya +1 more
- Vol. 827, pp 97-109
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TLDR
Wildlife corridors are components of landscapes, which facilitate the movement of organisms and processes between intact habitat areas, and thus provide connectivity between the habitats within the landscapes as discussed by the authors, thus supporting continuance of land use for essential local and global economic activities in the region of reference.Abstract:
Wildlife corridors are components of landscapes, which facilitate the movement of organisms and processes between intact habitat areas, and thus provide connectivity between the habitats within the landscapes. Corridors are thus regions within a given landscape that connect fragmented habitat patches within the landscape. The major concern of designing corridors as a conservation strategy is primarily to counter, and to the extent possible, mitigate the effects of habitat fragmentation and loss on the biodiversity of the landscape, as well as support continuance of land use for essential local and global economic activities in the region of reference.read more
Citations
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Resettlement and landscape-level conservation: Corridors, human-wildlife conflict, and forest use in Central India
TL;DR: In this article, the impacts of resettlement on wildlife corridors connecting increasingly insular protected areas and the interaction of resettlement with existing humanwildlife conflict (HWC) outside of protected areas were investigated.
Moving people for tigers: Resettlement, Food Security and Landscape-Level Conservation in Central India
Abstract: Moving people for tigers: Resettlement, Food Security and Landscape-Level Conservation in Central India Amrita Neelakantan Resettlement of humans from protected areas conserves habitats for wildlife. However, impacts of resettlement on the well-being of resettled communities and on broader conservation goals at the landscape level have been poorly quantified until now due to inadequate documentation and baseline information. Recent documentation and advances in measurements of human well-being enable studies that examine the impacts of resettlement for both people and conservation. In India, the current standardized resettlement policy by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is explicit in its goal to create inviolate habitats for tigers within protected areas. More than 70% of the global tiger population lives in protected areas in India. The central Indian national parks hold approximately 40% of Indian tiger populations. Implementation of the NTCA policy provides an opportunity to study resettlement with relatively accurate records of where resettled households moved, a standardized monetary compensation and the potential for replication with large representative groups to study impacts in various landscapes across the country. This dissertation focuses on resettlement in Kanha National Park in central India, one of the most well-known and oldest tiger reserves in the country. The Kanha National Park (KNP) landscape mirrors the realities of many people-park interactions in human-dominated areas with high percentages of indigenous human populations, historical forced displacements, and current resettlements that follow a standardized national policy. From a conservation point of view, connectivity between KNP and other protected areas across central India is crucial for genetically healthy tiger populations. This dissertation consists of three analyses that combine data from field surveys and existing data sources to examine the impacts of resettlement on food security, landscape connectivity for wildlife, and human-wildlife conflict in the KNP landscape. In Chapter 1, I use household surveys to compare the food security and livelihood associations of resettled households compared to their non-resettled neighbors at new settlement locations. I show that resettled households have similar availability and access to foods as their non-resettled neighbors. Increases in off-farm income sources are associated with higher food access for all households. In Chapter 2, I explore the pattern of low food access in the KNP landscape using the five capitals model for sustainable development to illustrate significant associations between livelihood factors and household food access. Salaried stable incomes and kitchen garden diversity are significantly associated with higher food access. Financial capital dwarfs the contributions of social and natural capitals which have supplementary roles in times of financial stress. In Chapter 3, I address resettlement impacts on habitat connectivity between protected areas and human-wildlife conflict that resettled households face after relocating outside the park. Resettled households are not disproportionately moving into corridors between protected areas, especially when compared to the manifold more non-resettled households already residing in these areas. Resettled households however are moving into areas of high human-wildlife conflict due to their continued proximity to KNP. Outcomes from Chapter 3 also confirm that steady incomes can alleviate forest use and lower human activities in forests reducing human-wildlife conflict. In human-dominated landscapes such as KNP, financial capital and the stability of household incomes can aid both food security, lower pressures on non-protected forests and potentially lower human-wildlife conflict. The results counter assumptions that resettled communities continue to follow traditional natural resource reliant livelihoods. Local populations are not likely to engage in livelihoods that are heavily reliant on natural resources as rural populations become integrated into urban economies. The results from this dissertation imply that managers in the KNP landscape can alleviate food security and aid landscape wide conservation goals by increasing off-farm salaried incomes. Finally, in India, there is a high potential for replication of this study around other protected areas, with nationally standardized resettlement in landscapes that vary geographically, ecologically and socially.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Prioritizing tiger conservation through landscape genetics and habitat linkages.
Bibek Yumnam,Yadvendradev V. Jhala,Qamar Qureshi,Jesús E. Maldonado,Rajesh Gopal,Swati Saini,Yellapu Srinivas,Robert C. Fleischer +7 more
TL;DR: The results of this study highlight that many corridors may still be functional as there is evidence of contemporary migration and conservation efforts should provide legal status to corridors, use smart green infrastructure to mitigate development impacts, and restore habitats where connectivity has been lost.
Data from: Prioritizing tiger conservation through landscape genetics and habitat linkages
Bibek Yumnam,Yadvendradev V. Jhala,Qamar Qureshi,Rajesh Gopal,Jesús E. Maldonado,Swati Saini,Yellapu Srinivas,Robert C. Fleischer +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used individual-based genetic analysis in combination with landscape permeability models to identify and prioritize movement corridors across seven tiger populations within the Central Indian Landscape, and found that the covariates that best explained tiger occupancy were large, remote, dense forest patches; large ungulate abundance, and low human footprint.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evaluating the status of the Endangered tiger Panthera tigris and its prey in Panna Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, India.
TL;DR: The status of tigers Panthera tigris and their prey in Panna Tiger Reserve using occupancy surveys, camera-trap mark-recapture population estimation, and distance sampling along foot transects was evaluated in 2006.
Journal ArticleDOI
Gene flow and demographic history of leopards (Panthera pardus) in the central Indian highlands.
Trishna Dutta,Trishna Dutta,Sandeep Sharma,Sandeep Sharma,Jesús E. Maldonado,Thomas C. Wood,Hemendra Singh Panwar,John Seidensticker +7 more
TL;DR: It is found that historical levels of gene flow were significantly higher than contemporary levels, and populations with large effective population sizes are the larger exporters of migrants at both timescales, and protection of forest corridors is suggested to maintain gene flow in this landscape.
Book
An Introduction to the Theory of Formal Languages and Automata
TL;DR: The present text is a re-edition of Volume I of Formal Grammars in Linguistics and Psycholinguistics, a three-volume work published in 1974 as discussed by the authors.