Conservation Himalayas (CH) is a non governmental organisation working with a mission to save wildlife and natural habitats in the northwestern Himalayan region in India. As the wild tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) population in India is fast declining with the current statistics showing an alarming figure at 1411, there has been now an urgent need to find strategic plan to save the remaining wild population of tigers motivating all sections of the society to understand severity of this tiger problem and get involved practically in the tiger conservation programme.

One of CH's priority areas of conservation is community outreach conservation education and capacity buildling approach which CH's believes can make a difference in tiger conservation programme if managed and organised scientifically. With this focus, the CH has initiated a COMMUNITY OUTREACH SAVE TIGER MISSION in the tiger range areas in the Uttarakhand state in the north western part of India. The CH's dedicated team endeavours not only to identify villages around the India’s famous Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) where the villagers face problems with the presence of tigers in the buffer zones but also to establish coordination between the communities and the conservation agents through an integrated tiger conservation education for communities, community capacity building initiatives and save tiger stewardship training programmes.
The SAVE TIGER mission of the CH is also being carried out in the entire Terai-Bhabar belt which links the core tiger habitats of CTR with the adjoining protected areas and functions as a major biological corridor for the Bengal tigers and asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in Uttarakhand state. This corridor is connected with the tiger habitats in the western Nepal. The Bengal tiger population in India has shown significantly a declining trend during the past decade despite the fact that the Project Tiger has been tremendously effective and successful in re-establishing tiger population in India ever since it was launched in 1973. From the latest tiger census by the National Tiger Conservation Authority of the Government of India, the current (as of September 2009) head count number of tigers in India is 1411-the number which is significantly a smaller figure compared to the previously estimated number of nearly 3600 tigers in 2002. This is indeed very unfortunate from the point of view of the future survival hope for the remaining few number of tigers living in different tiger reserves in the country under the ecological pressure of habitat fragmentation and the pressure of poaching for their body parts.
In the tiger range habitats of the northwestern forests of India in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, habitat fragmentation and poaching have been a major threat to the tigers during the last decade. In Uttarakhand’s Terai Arc landscape which supports an estimated number of 164 tigers, the threats are on rise in recent years to the natural habitats surrounding the CTR due to developmental and mining activities reducing the areas of tiger occupancy in forests of Lansdowne, Northwestern Nainital, Haldwani, Terai-east, Terai-west forest divisions. The growing rate of habitat fragmentation is believed to have adverse effect on the tiger population in the Terai Arc of Uttarakhand, and there is a much assumption that if the tiger habitat landscapes in the buffers in Lansdowne, Ramnagar, Haldwani, Teai East and Terai West are not scientifically managed, the existing demographically viable population of tigers in the CTR cannot maintain a balanced genetic connectivity in the northwestern forests of the Terai Arc that is linked with the Philibit tiger population in western Uttar Pradesh and Shulka Phanta tiger population in the northwestern Nepal. Poaching is another serious problem in this region that draws much attention of many tiger conservationists who consider scientifically modulated habitat landscape management, strict enforcement of tiger protection laws and community conservation education as the most effective conservation measures to protect the tigers that are still surviving in the wild.

Another emerging issue in the tiger range habitats is the human-tiger conflict (HTC). In many tiger range areas, the HTC problem is reportedly increasing with many cases of either tiger killing human beings and livestock or the tigers being declared as man eaters and subsequently killed by the forest department. In a recent case of human-tiger conflict, one lady was killed by an adult tiger while she was collecting fuel wood for domestic use. This incident incited the villages to force the CTR authority to declare the attacking tiger a man-eater. As a result of this emerging situation, the CTR authority had to declare the attacking tiger as a man-eater. Later the tiger was trapped by the CTR authority and sent to a local zoo. As CH understands that this is not a strong solution that can reduce the HTC, emphasis is being given to educate the communities to understand the root causes of the HTC, develop local strategies to escape from the tiger attacks and collectively cooperate with the local forest department to protect the buffer zone tiger habitats from human interference.

This problem of HTC adds to the problem of tiger population declining in the range countries. In Uttarakhand state, the HTC problem is perhaps restricted in buffer areas around the CTR and the surrounding forest reserves where more and more tigers, like many other wild animals, stray from the core habitats and forage outside of the PAs, killing livestock and people. The reason why this occurs in the buffer zones can be attributed to overpopulation social competition, lack of sufficient prey base, old age, and other ecological factors. As the human population is increasing along the fringe lines of the tiger range forests in Uttarakhand, the demand for more and more land for agriculture, housing and road networking continues to increase causing greater chance of human-tiger conflicts in the buffers. Secondly, the current methods and regulations dealing with the troublesome tigers in the buffers may be considered as inadequate in future as the value of human life increases. It is in this context, the communities living in the tiger range forest fringes in Uttarakhand need to be educated in a broader sense to make them well aware of the ecological significance of protecting tigers and their natural habitats and to involve them in the Tiger Conservation Mission of the government and non governmental agencies. From our pilot human wildlife conflict fact finding survey in the northwestern Himalayas, the communities are found to be least concerned for the welfare of the wildlife and mostly consider ‘wildlife including the tigers and the protected areas’ as govt’s property and the people have nothing to do with the loss of wildlife and habitats. This trend of mindset of a large population groups living in the tiger range areas in the northwestern India speaks itself the reason why tigers in India disappear and who could be responsible. Now before it is too late, we need to change this mindset of the people and integrate all sections of the society in a wildlife conservation education movement not only to save wild tigers and their natural prey base but also to strengthen a community-oriented habitat landscape management in the range areas.

In order to increase understanding and awareness about community-wildlife relationships and to promote an effective tiger conservation programme, it is important to involve all sections of the communities in an integrated tiger conservation education network. The CH’s tiger conservation mission in the Terai Arc of Uttarakhand gets along with the local communities and conducts outreach programmes to bring the local communities to the mainstream of decision making through which they can take pragmatic actions not only to protect the tigers, prey animals and the habitats, but also to coordinate with the local conservation agencies in curbing the human wildlife conflicts and wildlife crimes.